Life and Teachings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother

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9. PRAYER

People are of different types and many levels. Mother exists at all levels of creation and expresses herself in all types. Prayer means the human soul turning to the Divine soul seeking a relationship. Such a turning is called aspiration. When the individual soul seeks an eternal relationship with the Divine soul, the Mother of souls plays an intermediary role to make that relationship initially possible and consummates it in all its possibilities. This call from below and the answer from above find expression in the field of life and lose their character of call and answer. According to the given context it is a moved emotion, a great expansiveness, a trance like meditation, etc. At a more mundane level, it is a prayer for an ice cream or a sanction of success in a national election. Whatever the prayer and whatever the appearance of the sanction, it is the child soul turning towards the transcendent reality seeking a merger. Several of these can be explained.

1. Children ask for their merest desire. Mother grants it. The result is they take to Mother.

2. Adults ask for what is right. Mother grants it so that they will progress according to their own light. Some even insist on what is wrong. Mother often grants it in the hope he will soon realise.

3. Man does not know what to ask for. He prays for guidance and protection. She gives.

4. Man knows his desires but prefers to accept Mother’s guidance, resulting in Man conquering his desires and taking to consecration.

5. Man takes to consecration in all details of his life and progresses in surrender.

6. Man prays for the small thing he knows and cherishes. Mother refuses to grant it and grants something greater.

7. Man sees his prayer granted in every small thing but does not work to remove his central defect. She waits for him to become aware of his central defect.

8. Man’s prayer for anyone else is readily granted but not so readily for himself. It means he persists in utterly foolish ways of life.

9. Man does not even pray; nor does he know he deserves anything. She gives. Many accept and prosper; some refuse and make Mother wait for their readiness in future.

10. Sometimes he prays; sometimes he forgets to pray. She takes very good care of all his affairs. His soul receives. He is a pure devotee, though not fully conscious.

11. There are many pure souls on earth. They have not known of Mother’s existence at all. She knows all of them and all the needs of their souls and answers the calls they have not made.

12. There are child-like souls who work hard, who are selfless, cheerful, pure, expansive, not even thinking of God or Mother. Simply they are spontaneous, fresh and are at their best at all times. She constantly keeps in touch with them.

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10. GRACE

The Divine choosing to act on its own initiative is known as grace. Pity is the response of a person to another’s suffering more because he is unable to stand the sight of suffering than for the sake of the sufferer. Sympathy is the feeling one has at the sight of another suffering more for the object of suffering. The word 'sympathy' itself means to have the same (sym) feeling (pathy). This is a response of strong nerves to a victim of cruelty or suffering. Pity makes the individual who feels it miserable and helpless. He will not be able to relieve the sufferer. Sympathy comes from a strong person who can help the sufferer but not without sharing the misery of the other. Compassion comes from the soul. While sympathy evaluates the rightness of the victim and helps because the other suffers unjustly, compassion extends its help and relieves the other without evaluating the desert of the sufferer. The victim suffers, he needs to be relieved. Whether he is right or wrong, he should be helped. This is the attitude of compassion. Grace comes from the Divine. It acts because it does not see any reason for suffering to exist. While sympathy and compassion aim at relieving the sufferer, Grace aims at abolishing suffering. This is a lower function of Grace. The highest function of Grace is to hasten -- abridging centuries into months -- man’s elevation to the divine status. In between the abolishing of suffering and raising man to the Divine, Grace acts at various levels. Some of them are explained below.

1. We often see a prayer is answered exactly as we have asked for. This is Mother answering prayer through Her Grace. When someone was short of Rs.2,700 for a particular work, the exact amount came at the exact moment. Mother has several ways of granting a prayer. When she does so through her Grace, the answer exactly meets our requirements. This is the least of all expressions of Grace.

2. An impossible tangle of difficulties is resolved up to 99% or an incurable disease is relieved 99%. A man at the age of 65 got his arthritis relieved 99%. Mother acts from her Grace but through the faith of the devotee. I make a distinction between Mother acting through one of her powers, and her acting through a favourable circumstance around the devotee. In this example, Mother acts by her Grace through the faith of the devotee. If Grace had acted by itself, the relief would have been 100%. Faith moves mountains and in this case, it moved the Divine Power to relieve an incurable disease in an impossible condition. That is the greatness of faith. Still faith limits the achievement to 99%, whereas if grace acts on its own the cure will be 100%.

3. We often say our prayer is over fulfilled. This is the characteristic of Grace. A boy who endeavoured to simply pass the examination rose to the first rank; the candidate who ardently aspired for a clerkship got an officer’s job; property put up for sale for Rs.27,000 rupees fetched Rs.81,000; a devotee who longed to buy an acre of land bought 15 acres; the trader who moved heaven and earth to secure a district dealership became the director of the manufacturing company. These are all pure expressions of Grace, the presence of Grace indicated by the excess that comes.

4. When Grace sails towards the devotee, there may be visible reasons from the devotee’s side. Grace acts on its own, not in response to your prayer, your work or your desert. Still the devotee often finds an ostensible ‘reason’ for the incidence of Grace.

a. Grace comes because one has by his long industrious work deserved it. A farmer worked on his 100 acre plot so intelligently and diligently that he was universally admired. When the farmer completed his programme on his 100 acre estate, things shaped up in an unexpected fashion so totally that he was able to buy the adjacent 100 acre farm. It came in such a succession that the huge crew of workers on the first estate could take over the reclamation of the next estate without their having to disband themselves.

b. Grace comes in answer to a specific prayer. Indira Gandhi came to Mother praying for 250 Lok Sabha seats and ended up winning 350 seats.

c. Grace comes without a prayer, without man knowing of the existence of it. It awaits entry, awaits for a token acceptance. At the end of 30 years of business, an American businessman on whom Grace decided to descend received as much business in one year as in all the 30 years before. Grace waited at his door, waiting for a token of gratitude. He flatly refused Grace and its gift receded.

d. Grace moves and GRANTS without one’s asking for it or even knowing the power of Grace just because one is related to a centre of Grace. A man whose back was seriously broken was suffering intense back pain for 15 years. He was not interested in meeting Mother when he came to Pondicherry, but when he relented and had Her Darshan he was fully relieved of his pain in the back.

e. Grace moves on its own to convert a difficulty into an opportunity. Corrupt, dishonest colleagues of an honest officer foisted a false enquiry on him behind his back. The enquiry resulted in exposing everyone who conspired for it and raised the honest victim above the heads of the hawks.

f. Grace awaits us at all points of life as if it awaits the visit of a VIP when out of perverse foolishness one drags oneself into trouble. A perverse stupid man in his anger at the success of his only well-wisher foolishly handled some articles and severely damaged his hand. Just at the moment when everything required a vehicle, a driver, a doctor, etc., they were readily available. On top of that the doctor, after a second examination, found there was no fracture of the bones. Had one link been missing, the suffering of the victim could have been great, leading to complications.

g. Grace does answer after man persistently exhausts all perverse opportunities to ruin himself. A greedy fool resigned a secure government job to become a teacher and raise his academic status and later discovered his folly. A fortuitous chance got him back the same government job at a higher level, making up for the loss of seniority during the interim period.

It is a sure sign of Grace when something comes unasked. If there is a little extra than what is needed or prayed for, it indicates the presence of Grace. When Grace acts, unseen quarters offer help; long standing rules are changed in your favour; a new rule is made in an unbelievable way just to meet your precise requirements; the unheard of possibility happens; someone acts contrary to his nature to be of use to you; in spite of one’s folly and utter perversity, one is not able to spoil the work and it gets completed.

Grace always acts unknown to anybody for the good of all as when the Chinese retreated from the Indian border.

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11. MOTHER'S UNIQUE WAYS WITH HER CHILDREN

A tantric guru who came to have Mother’s Darshan exclaimed in pleasant surprise, “The Lalitha I worship is here.”

Answering someone on violence, Mother said violence is justified only in self-defense. Though she has said that, she did not use violence even in self-defense against those who tried to harm her in one way or another. When news was brought to Sri Aurobindo that a magician who had caused a rain of stones to fall in the residences of Ashramites was sinking, Sri Aurobindo took pity on him and said he need not die for throwing a few stones. Sri Aurobindo helped the magician revive.

I have repeatedly said in several places that Mother answers prayers that were not voiced by the devotees. Further, in instances when the devotee’s affairs are caught in a tangle and are spoiled and news comes to him after the loss is incurred, if he can bring himself to pray to Mother to save the situation that was already lost, Mother will act in a unique way. She does save the situation. The faith of the devotee to pray to her after the work has been spoiled, is no ordinary faith. It is extraordinary. Should he keep his faith and go about uncovering the situation, he would find that Mother, on his behalf, had been present in the situation and arranged things in such a way that the situation could be saved later. Every turn of events would be seen containing a circumstance by which the whole situation could be retrieved.

A research scholar found his guide took a dislike for him and vowed he would never certify his thesis as bonafide. The guide left the job and sought another job somewhere in North India. The scholar hoped against hope and had his term extended to the full permissible limit of four years. He had almost given up. When there were only four days left before the day of expiry, someone at that stage told him to pray to Mother, whom the scholar had not even heard of. He prayed and then travelled 200 miles to the university to submit his thesis on the very last day without the signature of his guide. The Registrar of the University told the scholar that the guide happened to be in town and he could try his luck. With trepidation the scholar went to the guide’s place where he was warmly welcomed. The guide was all smiles, explaining that in the evening he was leaving on a foreign tour, and he volunteered to certify the thesis. Mother always acts like that. She arranges affairs around you in such a fashion that your work can be accomplished. She is present wherever you go for your work in the form of a friend, a relative, a helpful officer, a kind hearted VIP, a favourable rule, etc. Such is her ubiquity.

Mother is universal. She is not confined to Pondicherry or even India. What is done to Mother as work or service has always a tendency to spread far and wide, covering the devotee’s entire area of emotional identification. If a devotee of Mother engages himself in a certain kind of activity—for example, he purchases a yarn mill—Mother’s influence over the entire spinning industry will be noticed. Not only the devotee’s mill will prosper, but the entire industry will too. The owner of a coffee estate offered his estate to Mother. Mother advised him to run it himself considering that in spirit it was hers. The estate, which had been losing turned the corner and later it was sold. Even after it left the hands of the devotee, the value of the estate began to rise and registered a three-fold gain in price in three years and in 10 years its value rose 25-fold. The entire field of coffee growing began to prosper beyond measure. That is Mother’s universality.

A devotee was working in a godforsaken area on top of a hillock. As drinking water did not exist there, he used to carry it with him during his visits. Since every novel thing he attempted was a success, some friends even were bold enough to suggest he could try to tap the ground water. He tried. It was a success. Mother did not stop there. He found out that his entire estate was full of underground water. More was to come. The entire region was soon dotted with borewells and came to be known as a water-rich region.

Mother’s gaze is very powerful! Only those who are open in their souls can meet her gaze and hold it for awhile. A tall majestic sadhu visited the Ashram and impressed everyone by the tejas on his face. When he came before Mother for Darshan, he could not meet her gaze and looked away at once. Not many can hold Mother’s gaze for a full minute. A healer came from France. He was an uneducated ordinary worker. When She looked into his eyes, he held it for more than a full minute. Mother was surprised at his receptivity and continued to give Her grace through her gaze. When the man was saturated and Mother turned her eyes away, it was a full 20 minutes, a unique experience even for Mother.

In the days of Sri Aurobindo and even a little later, visitors who came to have Mother’s Darshan would be brought by a sadhak to the morning balcony Darshan. Mother would express her opinion after seeing the man. If he met with Mother’s approval, he would be brought to Mother the following day for pranams. A newcomer was so brought to the balcony one morning and Mother called his sadhak friend to express her approval. She explained she saw the tall man with the beard that morning and the sadhak could bring him to her for pranams. The sadhak was surprised. His friend was short and had no beard. Mother wanted to be sure and gave precise instructions as to which side the visitor should stand on and asked him to be brought again to the balcony the following day. Again Mother saw him tall and with a beard. What Mother saw was the visitor’s appearance in the previous birth.

A famous Tamil writer called Va. Ra. lived in the Ashram in the early days. When he first came, Sri Aurobindo described the facial appearance of this writer. No one could see it on the face of the visitor. Va. Ra. left and returned after a year to live in the Ashram. Everyone was struck by his appearance. It fully matched Sri Aurobindo’s description a year earlier. Sri Aurobindo in his subtle vision had seen how Va. Ra. would look after a year.

Most people who take to Mother come to Her attracted by her spiritual greatness. Many do not even know of the several aspects of Mother till they become familiar with Ashram life. Whether the devotees know or not, Mother’s powers express themselves in the lives of the devotees. One such is an interesting power of Hers. If a devotee is endowed with all the requirements of a job and is emotionally identified with his institution, he will be fast rising to the top wherever he is or however big the organisation he serves. There are cases of people who have risen to the top post of an All India Organisation, state politics, etc.

Sri Aurobindo’s Purna Yoga has a declared aim of defeating death. He even says one of the first attainments is the capacity to prolong life at will. In the case of a devotee it expresses as a longer life than decreed. Dangers to life predicted by horoscope become void after taking to Mother. The inauspicious hour, or rahukalam, is a part of the Indian tradition. Rahukalam is known to be the arch enemy of any act. After taking to Mother inauspicious hour loses its potency unless the devotee retains his faith in it. Even if the devotee has started ignoring rahukalam, people in the social milieu have faith in it. Their faith will keep the atmosphere of life conducive to the play of rahukalam. It works in a strange reverse fashion. The power of undoing of rahukalam works in the life of a devotee by undoing his obstacles. That is Mother’s way in life. A devotee farmer was invited by a land development officer to avail of a Rs.25,000 loan. The hour of submitting the application coincided with rahukalam. The devotee disregarded it. But rahukalam has retained its power. The secretary of the bank raised impossible objections to the application, much to the embarrassment of the officer who invited the farmer. The very first step was not taken for months. Rahukalam proved itself powerful. The Indian bank came to know of the farmer’s activities and invited him and offered Rs.2 lakhs. Had the Land Mortgage Bank been quick, the farmer’s sale deeds would have been pledged to it and to retrieve them was no mean job. Perhaps the offer might not have waited until the procedures of retrieving the documents with a bank were fulfilled. Rahukalam, which acted according to its original character, happened to serve the devotee in this case. When a man faces an obstacle in life and understands that would be his undoing, he prays to God. When his prayer is answered, the bhakta finds the obstacle disappearing. He offers a deeply felt prayer of gratitude. Mother also acts similarly removing the obstacles. When the devotee is faced with an obstacle, one of Her ways is to convert it into an opportunity. That is unique with Mother.

An industrial group with a Rs. 10 crore [1] turnover got into real trouble by some misdeeds. One of the members was a devotee. What was normal in the trade came to be considered an error in this particular case. Ordinarily such errors are leniently viewed or given a token punishment. In this case, it was taken up by political rivals to settle an ancient grudge, with the result that this group had become a scapegoat. They were past redemption. All the members of the group resigned to their fate and were ready to be wiped out. The devotee member had not lost faith. He believed that Mother would not let him down. He persisted in his efforts to raise their heads above water. Slowly things changed complexion. They began to come out of the ordeal. Winds of change were favourable. The efforts made for survival opened new opportunities, new contacts, etc. As a result they weathered the storm and survived. Not only that. In three years their turnover crossed Rs.100 crores and in another four years their assets grew to the level of Rs.100 crores. Mother had turned the difficulty into opportunity.

There is an anecdote about Madhvachariyar, the founder of the philosophy of Dualism. While travelling in the Himalayas, he asked one of his disciples to stay in a hut there and wait for him to return. The loyalty of the disciple would not allow the Master to travel alone. He followed the master. After some time the Master turned around and saw the disciple. He waved his hand and pronounced, “Go back”. The disciple was lifted into the sky and was deposited back in the hut. A Master’s words have such power in the material world. Mother’s Power is real in the world of matter and can be felt as such.

When a person is a source of trouble, Mother’s way of removing the trouble is to make the same person set it right.

Anyone anywhere in the world, if he is inwardly receptive, can receive Mother’s Force and the results of Her work for the world. The only thing that matters is the inner receptivity, nothing else.

She used to see a ball of light on the tip of her pen when she wrote. The light prevented her from seeing the writing. Still she wrote correctly.

On his 60th birthday a sadhak came to Mother for birthday blessings. She asked him what he wanted and without waiting for an answer she asked if he would like strength. She put her hand on his head. As if a tap had opened, strength flowed into him. For several years after that, he used to join the running competition with youngsters and complete it.

An elderly man who is a devotee of Sri Aurobindo introduced a young man to the Ashram. The young man seriously took to Mother and was following as many disciplines of Mother as he could. One of those disciplines was if someone hurts you, do not consider whether it is right, but look inside yourself for the dark spot that invited the external hurt. Do not react even in thought. One day the youngster came to see the elderly man and also brought a friend. The elderly man evinced interest in the newcomer. The young man said that they had both been to visit the Samadhi where his friend had sat for sometime. While he was sitting there, he felt he was bodily lifted into the air and reached the top level of a drain pipe which was outside Mother’s room. When the young man reported this to an elderly sadhak in the Ashram whom he used to meet, the sadhak explained that his friend had relations with Mother in earlier births, since his subtle being had risen up to the pipe outside Mother’s room. When the elderly man heard this report, he frowned and said that the whole thing existed only in his friend’s imagination. The young man could not reconcile the comments of the sadhak with those of this elderly man. Yet he was interested in not reacting but finding inside himself what could have brought this unseemly comment of the elderly man. In the process, the young man was silent for about half a minute. The elderly man became excited, lost his usual poise and spoke agitatedly, “It is silly and stupid on my part to have made this comment, especially when a sadhak has given an interpretation. What do I know?” Mother’s disciplines are powerful and can not only bring about desirable changes in oneself but can change the external situation too. Inner control leads to mastery over external events.

Sylvia, an Australian lady, cabled from London that she would be visiting Pondicherry. Robert received the cable and arranged for a room in an Ashram guesthouse. Sylvia was a businesswoman who had purchased some handloom goods from Robert. She had not heard about the Ashram but was visiting Pondicherry just because it happened to be on her route back from London. Sylvia did not show up on the given day but reached there one day later. Robert met her more out of courtesy than for work. He found her full of fear and pale like a ghost. She asked what hotel it was and commented about the extraordinary peace that was there, not knowing it was an Ashram guesthouse. Then she began to explain what had happened to her and why she had come a day late. She had reached Bombay from London and had a seat on the Madras flight. Somehow, that seat was given to someone else and she was offered one on the next flight. Not being used to such practices, Sylvia raised a storm in the office and had everyone shaking. But nothing could be done to restore her lost seat. She was seething with anger when she saw the plane take off. To her horror a few minutes later she witnessed that same plane crash. She was horrified to think that she was supposed to be on that flight. She could not overcome the horror even after a day.

The fact that Sylvia was passing through Pondicherry, staying in an Ashram guesthouse and meeting a sadhak was enough to take her out of the danger of a plane crash. Mother’s protective wings extend far beyond Her children.

A service organisation and a business organisation were run by the same proprietor. The business was small with several lakhs of rupees [2] turnover. It so happened that the service organisation came in touch with Mother. It matured to the point where the service wing did some service to Mother. The head of the service wing who was not known outside his profession started to become famous, powerful and prosperous beyond measure. The institution itself expanded to double and treble in size. The proprietor’s real interest was in the business wing. That began to prosper limitlessly. Where the proprietor’s emotions were focused there was great growth. It rose to the No. 1 position in its industry in the state and No. 2 position at the all-India level, raising its turnover 28 times. The proprietor did not even know that his service wing was rendering service to Mother in the initial years. Even much later, he never knew what service had been rendered. Still Mother’s Force awarded its prize to those who offered Her service.

If someone has accepted Mother and he examines his life after a little while, he will find there exists no problems of any description. There are rare instances where problems do exist. Those are problems wantonly created by the devotee out of his preferences.

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12. INDIA

Mother said India would become the Guru of the world. India is the country where spirituality is developed to its heights. She must lead the world and the world must come to accept the leadership and guruhood of India.

At least 30 years before Indian Freedom, Mother told Sri Aurobindo that She saw India free in the subtle world. In 1930, when the Congress leadership was packed with giants of the pre-Independence generation, a group photo of Congress leaders was shown to Mother. She spotted out a youngster who was lost in a corner and asked who it was. It was Jawaharlal Nehru. When Mother said he would be the future leader of India, nobody could believe her.

Mother was sorry that the British had stayed in India too long. She said that wherever India had inherited Western culture, she had become rotten. Even now 70% of India remains unpolluted by westernisation. Mother says spirituality is in the very atmosphere of India. An Indian farmer, according to Mother, is closer to the Divine than the European intellectual.

It was Mother’s long-standing wish to become an Indian citizen. The Government of India granted Her Indian citizenship without Her relinquishing her French citizenship. Thus, she enjoyed dual citizenship.

Sri Aurobindo believed that India must remain united to lead the world. In 1947, he even prophesied that within ten years India and Pakistan would unite.

Almost all Chief Ministers, Governors, Presidents, Vice-Presidents and all the Prime Ministers have come to Mother seeking Her blessings.

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13. MOTHER'S PRINCIPLES IN WORK

Work for Mother is a field of greater yogic effectiveness than meditation. Mother says one can make a greater progress in yoga by doing the work in the right spirit than by meditating. By right spirit Mother means taking interest in the work that comes to us instead of seeking to do the work one likes. It looks simple, but this is one of the most difficult disciplines in any yoga. A boy who loves cricket can agree to stop playing it during study period and sit at his table for hours preparing for the examination. He unbends himself from play and bends his energies to work. This is to do one’s duty. This is admirable. By the above discipline Mother wants this boy to derive the same joy in doing his lessons as he derives from cricket playing. Normally that capacity is not within the reach of the boy. At least he can suppress his enthusiasm for cricket, disregard his dislike for study and do his duty. This way he gives his energies to duty. This is good and Mother approves of it. Now what She asks for is that the boy should enjoy his studies as much as he enjoys playing cricket. That is ordinarily beyond human capacity.

When a man takes to yoga, accepts Mother, adores Her, loves to do Her bidding, feels the privilege of working for the Divine Mother and sees his reading as something he does for the sake of Mother, joy begins to issue from reading. Within the limits of this act, this is a process of divinisation, transformation, a process of raising man from sensual pleasure to psychic joy. To know that we are doing the work in right spirit, Mother gives an index. After completing a work if one feels joy, he has done it in the right spirit. If one feels tired after a work, he has done it in the old human way. Almost as a rule when a man joins the Ashram the work that falls to his lot is one that he has detested all his life. He has to learn to transform his dislike into enjoyment. That is one aspect of sadhana.

A man derives joy from a work when he has great skill in it. He who has high skill in a work can be seen taking pride in it and enjoying it. Several such aspects in the physical, mental expression of a work help one enjoy it. An attempt is made to explain these aspects below.

Punctuality, regularity, orderliness, cleanliness, etc. are essential disciplines to accomplish a work. We can say that if the value of punctuality alone is acquired by Indians to the level of European punctuality, it can transform the nation from a poor to a rich one. All of us know its value. It is enjoyable when we possess it. It is very productive. Regularity and other qualities in the list above are more valuable. In 1920 Mother started teaching sadhaks how to keep books in an orderly way.

Maximum utilisation of energy, materials, money, water, electricity, etc. is a cardinal principle. In other words, elimination of waste of every description is a value. A company in USA went bankrupt. It was a small company with Rs.5 crore sales. Another man bought it. The first thing he did was to apply a scale of utilisation values he had evolved in his own business. He worked out the percentage of expenditure on every item such as electricity, advertisement, etc. He applied those norms here and found the electric bill was 2.5 times higher than it should have been. He took action to bring down all expenses to within his norms. In three months, the new acquisition became an economically viable one, even profitable. Mother followed all these principles, which would be understood as economy in Ashram life. She used to re-use envelopes by turning them inside out.

To approach a work from another man’s point of view is a powerful principle for success in life and work. To approach it from our own point of view only will generate conflicts and produce low results. To approach the same from another man’s point of view is generative of harmony, producing maximum results. I shall give one example.

A contractor of sugar mill waste known as pressmud was in business for 17 years and was fairly successful. But over the years his business accumulated outstanding from the farmers to whom he supplied on credit. He had a thick bundle of 200 promissory notes due to him for the last 17 years, periodically renewed. Each year he supplied more, collected a little, lent more and so on. The outstanding remained.

A devotee farmer came to the contractor one year. The ruling price of a lorry of mud was Rs.125. As the farmer wanted very large quantities, a Rs.5 reduction was offered and the contractor was willing to increase the reduction even up to Rs.10, the maximum permissible. The devotee had a different approach. It is the approach of taking another man’s point of view. Having sold pressmud for Rs.125, the contractor has only accumulated promissory notes, not cash. The devotee proposed to buy in large quantities at prices that were proposed by the contractor and offered to pay in advance. But he wanted to examine the facts of cost and profit, instead of negotiating an imaginary price. They sat together and worked out costs including payment by the contractor to the sugar mill, labour, sales tax, lorry expenses, etc., without omitting a single detail. At each figure, the farmer included an allowance and rounded it off to the next higher figure. For example, if the factory should be paid every month Rs.2,900, he made it Rs.3,000 If eight workers were needed for a load, he made it nine. When the final figure was arrived at, the farmer asked what net profit the contractor expected from the operation and added it. Further he proposed to add a monthly salary to the contractor paying for his service, even if he was serving himself. The contractor was scandalised and refused it. It worked out to Rs.85 per load for 2,000 lorry loads. The price was fixed at Rs.90. The farmer paid all the money as and when the contractor needed an advance. No farmer could believe that pressmud was supplied at Rs.90. The contractor was able to collect all the 17 year arrears that year, selling a small part of his mud for cash to his old customers. He bought a lorry that year and declared it was the most profitable year for him in business. To take another man’s point of view accomplishes great work at less cost, more smoothly, to the benefit of both parties.

An attitude of "work first, anything next" must be the guiding line.

To have a good control of speech is a yogic discipline but will yield great results for anyone in any walk of life. The total amount of talking must be brought down to the minimum necessary level. The tone must come down to an audible whisper. These two efforts are very difficult. In business low voice produces great profits.

When an industrialist with Rs.10 lakhs annual sales came to Mother, he mentioned his one major industrial problem was a harassing manager who irritated him beyond measure by his umpteen repetitions, which occupied all his time. Among many ideas, he practised low voice and was relieved of the harassment from the manager in one day. His sales rose to Rs.50 lakhs in three years.

The voice comes from our life centre and therefore carries a life-power. Conserving the energy through low voice will have desirable results in life. In business, it first of all makes the entrepreneur effective and happy. He functions in a relaxed way. If anyone follows this in business, he will discover that there is no better way to make money. Voice lowered is money conserved.

Systems for every individual item of work are essential.

Coordination of all systems generates an unheard of power.

Personal power must be replaced by the impersonal authority of a system.

Mother was great as an organiser. Whatever She did, she functioned through a system. Sitting on a bench near the garage inside the Ashram, I witnessed a man coming with a ladder and a can of grease. Seeing my curiosity about his work, he smiled and explained that there was no special occasion for his work. Mother arranged for a register in the workshop in which fixed dates were given for every little work to be done periodically. Accordingly, this man had come to grease the joints in the collapsible gate in the garage. That is the extent to which Mother paid attention to details and put those details in a system that worked automatically.

Ordinarily man carries the weight of his work on his nerves and it gives tension, making people look older than their years. Often we hear, "There are a million details. If I forget one thing, it is not done. I feel like going mad." This is so because this man does not resort to systems. Once you create a system, the work is done well and your nerves are free. A system does the work of 10 or 100 or 1,000 men. That is the value of a system.

If systems are valuable, coordination of systems is powerful. Suppose there are 25 systems in a company with a minimum of coordination and they are all coordinated to a maximum extent, the same staff can accomplish twice or thrice more. To give a simple example, in a college if the timetable of the dozen departments is not coordinated, i.e. if each department has its own time table, the two year course will extend to five years and twice as many classrooms must be built.

We can see one expression of this at home when there are three cycles for use and five of us are using them. Without coordination, two more cycles must be bought and with coordination, one or two cycles can serve the purpose instead of three.

When individual power is exercised, accomplishment is low. If impersonal authority is used through systems, the same man can manage twice the amount of work.

Values are lifelines. They have great power. In business one value everyone appreciates is the quality of the product. Every businessman as well as every customer knows fully well the value of quality. If you look at any company and find it is making steady progress, certainly it will be adhering to values. If two companies in the same industry are making small and great progress, surely the latter company will be following higher values. Even one great value fully followed can give extraordinary results. Some of the values that are meaningful to business are: safety, security of job, family feeling, constant progress, reliability, honesty, efficient after-sales service, maximum use-value of product, courtesy, friendliness, ideals in work, trustworthiness, quality product and loyalty.

The required level of education for the work of every employee is essential.

Education expands the mental horizons. An educated person is better for his education. Each level of work requires a minimum education. Workers, supervisors, clerks, managers, accountants, etc. should have the education necessary for them. That makes the work enjoyable for them and productive for the company. The idea of accomplishing a higher work through a less educated person may be successful in the exception, but as a rule it hurts the work.

Full essential training for the work is important.

Education is the base, training is the top dressing. Regular systematic training, though costly in the beginning, pays rich dividends in the long run. Generally we let our workers be trained during work. We expect them to be trained by experience. As a rule this training is slow, partial and expensive. One bad result here is that they acquire a wrong training.

One company in Holland followed the first principle of recruiting people and expecting them to acquire training through service. Another recruited trained people. Though both were of comparable endowments in all respects, in five years the second company rose to the 3rd position in the industry while the first company was ranked 21.

Perfect skill is of permanent value.

Skill in works is yoga, says The Gita. To see that everyone in the company acquires perfect skill in what he does will raise any company from the bottom to the top. It is the duty of the owner of the company to constantly raise the skills of his workers. That makes the workers happy and labour relations smooth. A company with 50 workers had at least 25 labour problems in two years and was closed for five months. The proprietor agreed to take very special steps to give complete skill to all his workers. The situation reversed and the labour trouble disappeared.

Courage in crisis is a great endowment. Intelligent risk in seeking opportunity brings reward.

To advise one in a crisis to have courage is easy, but to give him courage is not so practical. Granting that a company faces a crisis, the entrepreneur finds himself helpless and it leads to panic. But there are people who in a similar situation do not get panicky and who are courageous. About 15 years ago, a Rs.150 crore company faced a market situation in which it became clear to all that it was only a matter of time before the company would have to close. Employees at all levels were filled with terror. The situation was in nobody’s hands. The proprietor was courageous and calm. He was the one who would lose the most but he did not lose courage. In a few weeks, there were several unexpected developments and the crisis blew away. Today the company’s assets are worth Rs.1,000 crores. Anything could have happened. It is the courage of one man at the top that saved the situation.

Well, he was one endowed with courage. What about ordinary mortals who get panic-stricken? Of what use is this advice to them? Knowledge that courage is a saviour brings some courage. If one is a devotee and prays for courage, Mother grants plenty of it.

Resourcefulness is always a great value. In business it pays rich dividends. Mother’s devotees can find their minds becoming more and more resourceful as days pass. A determination to be resourceful helps it to flower. Simply described, resourcefulness means to find a use for every resource and to find a solution for given-up tangles.

A milk society was continuously losing money, and the co-operative department considered closing it. One low level officer expressed the opposite view. They asked him to try. In six months, he turned it into a profit-making society and even purchased a delivery van. Pleased by his resourcefulness, the department asked whether he could start a co-operative bank. He did. In the first three years, his performance record was top-most in India. He was a simple man who retired at a non-gazetted post. But he was resourceful. At the silver jubilee of the bank, they hunted out the man from his retirement and gave him an award.

Endless Progress

To have constant endless progress as a goal enlivens a business organisation. When a sugar mill was founded, the owner sought Mother’s blessings. She wrote "For endless progress". He registered 1,500 acres of cane for the first year crushing. The average per acre yield in the adjacent factory area was 28 tons. This factory fixed a high average of 45 tons an acre, since initial cultivation gives higher return. Mother’s endless progress reached the fields too. The fields yielded 85 tons an acre, which even touched 110 tons in exceptional cases. The factory kept on crushing the first year’s cane for two full years.

Mother herself blesses her devotees with endless progress. If endless progress is accepted as a conscious goal, the company does progress endlessly.

If a devotee starts a company, endeavours along these lines seriously and meets with a fair level of success, his company will have several characteristics that can be observed.

There will be an atmosphere of hope and joy in the work.

Public image will be one of admiration and approval.

Individuals in the company will be sought after by everyone from everywhere.

Expansion, not mere growth, will be endless.

No difficulty will ever arise.

If ever any difficulty arises, either it will be in our power to remove it or it will be a stepping stone to higher achievement.

Mother as a Disciplinarian

Mother’s love is great. We can say that her love is as great as her disciplines. But She had the unique endowment of disciplining people not through authority and punishment but through her love. Those who were well brought up, those who came forward to discipline themselves were appreciated by her. Discipline, external and internal, is necessary, but it should not be imposed from outside. It must be self-imposed. Discipline is an article of faith with Mother.

We can say that following Mother’s rules is as good as following Mother herself. The more disciplined you are, the closer you are to Mother.

Levels of Prayer

Think of Mother when a crisis comes. It is better to think of Her before the act commences. If you want to start any work and that work has several strands, has a history—a karma —first think of those obstacles before thinking of the work. Prayer to Mother with a mind of awareness is a better prayer. Keep your home clean and be diligent in all your acts before you think of praying to Mother for any particular work. Better still, keep the mind clean before cleaning the house.

If you pray to Mother before an act commences, knowing the obstacles involved in it, and with a clean mind and home, prayer is most powerful. If you can do that much, you do not have to pray, because She thinks of you. No prayer is necessary to accomplish any work. Still, prayer has a place for higher perfection. Prayer, concentration, effort, consecration are powerful yogic methods and instruments. A diligent, alert, conscious householder need not resort to any of these methods to have a work done. All his work will be well accomplished. He can resort to prayer or consecration for greater perfection in sadhana.

Mother as a Mother

Apart from Her divinity, Mother is pre-eminently a mother. She gives as few others can give. She often said that she had to act according to the mother in her. A mother disregards her children’s deficiencies and pays attention only to their requirements. A Jewish proverb says that God created mothers because he could not be present everywhere. She gives you spiritual experiences and, when you manage to lose them, she helps you to regain them too. She starts giving to you before you even come to her in a measure no one can imagine.

A man was trying in vain to sell a property of his for twice the market value! He did not succeed. Mother, whom he had not heard of, helped him to succeed for her own reasons. After the deal was successfully finalised, his temperament spoiled it. For another six years he could not sell it. He once came to Darshan out of curiosity. In return of that man’s visit of curiosity, Mother brought him an offer of purchase for three times the impossible price he asked for. Again at the time of finishing the deal, he spoiled it. He was now shown that it had come to him from Mother. The man agreed and visited the samadhi to pray. The lost offer came back. That is how Mother gives.

A young man who started life on a salary of Rs.125 was invited to the Ashram sometime in June of a certain year. In the middle of July, the young man happened to meet the elderly man who had sent the invitation earlier. He suggested to the youngster to visit the Ashram on August 15. Mother and the Ashram were unknown to the youth till then. In the first week of July, the young man’s income rose to Rs.960. Neither the young man nor his people knew it had any connection with his proposed visit to the Ashram a month and a half later. Mother alone can give as She gives. We see only the external material gifts and are oblivious of what She pours into the soul of the man.

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14. NATURE, CLIMATE, WEATHER

Mother says the weather is under the control of some little entities. They all obey her. When children in the Ashram school pray for no rain during the games, these entities answer positively. It is a constant experience of our school children.

Indira Gandhi was in North India, touring parts that were affected by drought. A devotee was there in those parts by chance. He met the Prime Minister and told her that a prayer to Mother would bring rain. She instructed a telegram to be sent to Mother by the devotee. Rain came in copious measure in response to the prayer.

Pondicherry and its environs have never suffered the negative effects of drought. From a certain village, a group of workers were coming to an ashram factory. They complained of water scarcity in their village. The news reached Mother. Mother asked the villagers to pray. Rain descended in torrents and would not stop. Too much rain now caused a problem. News again went to Mother. She smiled and the rain stopped.

Mother easily tunes herself to nature and nature responds to her readily. It is the experience of several devotees that, in answer to their prayer, several times a cyclone that was predicted to hit in the next few hours moved away. Even in cyclone-devastated areas, devotees have reported that their properties, even an advertisement board, have been left intact though surrounded by several damaged buildings.

Robert was someone who brought rain wherever he went. Even in a desert he visited, there were unprecedented rains creating a flood. Robert was fond of Sri Aurobindo’s Gayatri mantra and started chanting it. The temperature reached peak levels as in dog days. It was Robert who constantly complained about the heat. When he suspected a relation between his chanting and the rising heat, he suspended the chanting. The heat came down. But the Gayatri he was chanting would not stop. It started repeating itself inside him without his initiative. The heat rose. With great effort Robert succeeded in stopping the Gayatri and maintained that control till summer passed away.

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15. GODS

Mother always had several types of relationships with the Gods. She once saw a film on Anusuya, the wife of a rishi. Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva appeared before Anusuya and asked food to be served by her naked. Anusuya turned the Tirumurthis into babies by the power of her chastity and served them food. Mother commented that it was a lovely story. Mother explained that through her devotion Anusuya invoked the Supreme to come to the rescue of her husband against the erratic wishes of the Tirumurthis.

Mother used to conduct meditation in the hall and several gods, goddesses and rishis used to regularly participate in the meditation. She said they perched themselves on the cornices of the meditation hall pillars. Durga came every year a day or two before the puja for Durga. Mother spoke to Durga about surrender to the Supreme. This concept was new to Durga and she was intrigued. Later she understood. Durga explained that the gods never thought of surrender. It was not their way. When Durga understood and offered surrender to the Supreme, she enjoyed the new experience.

Once Mother spoke to the sea god and asked him not to disturb her work by encroaching into her building. Mother had heard a lot about Ganesh. One day she meditated to see him. She saw him approaching with his trunk and a smile. She was surprised that he did exist. He was happy to do anything for Mother. Mother expressed her need for money for the work. He agreed to do his part. Mother said that for ten years money flowed in constantly. Later she took up work in America. By that time money had dried up. She called Ganesh and asked him what happened to his promise. Ganesh expressed his inability, saying that Mother’s need was too big and his resources were limited. Mother explained that since people in America had no knowledge or faith in Ganesh, he could not give her money for work in America.

A Ganesh temple near the Ashram was being renovated and there was not enough space on one side. Ganesh came to Mother and asked her for space from one of her adjacent buildings. Mother called her people and arranged for it.

Mother returned to her room one day and found Shiva standing there. He was as tall as the room. His head reached the ceiling. She had a conversation with him and he said he was willing to help her. She wanted her physical ego to be eliminated. Shiva consented and the next moment the sensation in the cells showed that the dissolution of her physical ego had begun. She told Sri Aurobindo what had happened. He felt it was not necessary at that time. Immediately every movement in Mother’s cells stopped.

Mother had asked Shiva and Krishna to incarnate in the body of Sri Aurobindo to expedite his mission. Shiva was unwilling and said he would come after the advent of the Supermind. Krishna agreed and entered into Sri Aurobindo’s body. Mother says she saw with her own eyes Krishna incarnating in Sri Aurobindo’s body. She reported all that to Sri Aurobindo and found that he was not interested.

Sri Aurobindo used to say that he never wanted to be limited by the gods. The gods belong to the overmental plane. Their dimension, Mother says, belongs to the dimension of earth. Overmind is a plane where the full power of truth does not exist. It is a plane where truths can protect themselves and act, eliminating the destructive influence of ignorance. Overmind brings together several truths to act in unison. Krishnavatar came from this plane. The color of this plane is blue. Sri Aurobindo explained to Mother that the overmental truth had no power to transform ignorance into knowledge. It can function successfully protecting its truth and avoiding the warping influence of ignorance. Truth is self-existent in the next plane of Supermind. Here there is no ignorance. Power of Supermind can enter into ignorance, reach its foundation of truth, unite all of them and from there transform ignorance into knowledge. Without that seed of truth, however little, neither ignorance, nor evil, nor falsehood, nor even hostility can exist. Beings of the supramental plane are of the dimension of the universe. On February 29, 1956 when the Supermind descended, Mother found herself as big as the universe and in a golden form. The gods have a limitation when they come to function in the supramental plane. Sri Aurobindo had declared he never wanted to be limited by the gods in his work.

After 1950, Mother sometimes took to walking. She was walking daily on the verandah outside Sri Aurobindo’s room. After a few days, she found Krishna walking alongside her. Much later, she found Sri Aurobindo instead of Krishna walking with her. These were adorable moments in her life. She remarked to Sri Aurobindo how nice it was to walk with him. It was much better than the other work she was doing. From that day onwards, he stopped coming. After sometime Mother found that, when she walked on the verandah, She was followed by HERSELF.

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Notes:

[1] One crore = 10 million. Ten crores of rupees equals approximately $2.5 million in 1999.

[2] A lakh = 100,000. One lakh of rupees in 1999 is approximately $ 2325.

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16. PAST LIVES OF SADHAKS

Mother and Sri Aurobindo were on earth at all critical periods of evolution to guide it, said Sri Aurobindo. Answering a question about how long they were on earth, he said since the beginning. Mother always said that all those who are here in the Ashram, those who were here and even those who had left the Ashram, were with them in several previous births. Everyone of them had, in earlier births, prayed to Her for the boon of being with Her at the time of Divine fulfilment. And that is why they are all here, said Mother.

In a certain period, Mother was telling sadhaks about their previous births. To one sadhak she said that she saw an emanation of Vivekananda on him. Another was a Roman general. Commenting on the royal robes of an actor on the Ashram stage, Mother said he looked exactly like his past self as a Roman Emperor. Reincarnations of Hector, Moses, Lalitha [Radha’s play mate], a French king and Confucius were found by her among her disciples.

TRANSFORMATION

For human life to be transformed into Divine Life, the ego should be replaced by the soul, the thoughts of mind by the jyothi of the spirit, the attachment of the heart by divine love, the excitement of the vital by the delight of the spirit, the habitual efficiency of the body by the unfettered power of the gods, death by immortality, etc. All expressions of darkness and falsehood must be replaced by expressions of light and truth. Purna yoga’s central endeavour is to bring this about.

When we receive blessings from the Mother, when we think of Her and feel we belong to her, when we really see Mother acting in our lives, we see the expressions of such a transformation.

An industrialist devotee came to the Ashram on his usual annual visit, met a visitor who had come there, and discussed his own affairs in his factory. The industrialist was pleased by the half-hour discussion with the visitor and even felt that it might be useful. A week later the visitor received a cheque for Rs.2,000, requesting him to use it for the work he was doing for Mother. The industrialist was known to be a miser of a hard type. Not many people had succeeded with him in matters of money. Everyone who personally knew the industrialist refused to believe the news. Some could not even believe it after seeing the cheque. Misers of reputation have shown the ‘Divine Truth’ that misers do have generosity when they relate to Mother and have acted as men of generosity. Whenever you find a man acting exactly opposite to his nature, you can be sure Mother is at work. That is her power of transformation.

The owner of a coconut garden prayed to Mother that the theft of nuts from his garden should stop. It stopped. Two men came to him. They announced that they were the thieves and that they had decided to turn over a new leaf. Theft can stop in response to prayer. The thief changing his ways and announcing it to his victim is unheard of. Wherever it exists, it is transformation. Wherever Mother acts, that touch of transformation is inevitably there.

Mother has named the flower of the Indian Cork tree ‘transformation’. A bank’s offering more money than applied for; dishonest villagers returning their loans on their own; an applicant who pleaded for the inclusion of his name in the selection panel, cancelling the previous rejection order, finding his name included, not in the panel, but in the selected list; the aspirant for a bank clerkship being recruited as a bank agent; the buyer of a property offering a higher price than the one quoted by the seller—are not common to human life. They are the experiences of the devotees and expressions of Mother’s power of transformation.

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17. WHERE IS MOTHER?

By ‘Mother’ we mean the Mother of Sri Aurobindo Ashram who lived here in her physical body for over 60 years. Sri Aurobindo said Mother was an avatar and an incarnation of the Divine Transcendent Shakti. In Her individual aspect she lived here and worked with Sri Aurobindo. During her stay She revealed her universal aspect several times. To us, her devoted children dedicated to Her mission, She is the Supreme Divine Mother physically leading us to the realisation of the Supermind. She is individual, universal and transcendent. Her being here on earth, Sri Aurobindo said, is an act of constant Grace. When all is said and done, we mortals have a way of feeling that she WAS here and now Mother is not here, referring to her physical existence. It is true that the physical presence of Mother is constant Grace, an incomparable opportunity to relate to Her as her own children. It is an Hour of God and not luck that earth was often favoured with. Perhaps this was the most auspicious hour in earth’s life. Mother even added a new dimension to Her existence on earth. The Divine Mother, of whom she was a physical incarnation, herself came down on earth to hasten the advent of the Supramental Being, because our Mother was here.

Well, it is a physical fact that Mother lived amongst us and now she is no longer with us in the physical body. How do we know when she acts, where she is, which acts express her grace? There are several ways that were true even when Mother was here and continue to be equally true now, perhaps more true. One thing is certain. Mother’s presence is now more powerfully felt everywhere than when she was here prior to 1973. She responds to calls more quickly and her answers bring a fuller result.

When a devotee meets Mother, she initiates him into spirit by looking into his eyes, reaching his soul through the eyes, fixing a spark of herself in his soul, which grows there into an emanation of her, presiding over his life. Apart from that permanent lodged inhabitant, there are the other moments when she comes into your mind, heart, nerves or life. They have a special sweetness, each special to its own plane, and have a marked way of expressing.

We can know Mother is there when CALM invades our heart suddenly. When Mother chooses our heart as a temporary abode, we feel it as CALM. If she chooses to linger there for more than a minute, causeless joy issues out of our heart. Joy is always Mother’s gift and causeless joy is a stamp of Her presence. If you ever find your mind expanding -- actually it is felt as if the skull is expanding -- you can spot out Mother in your mind. If thought ceases in your mind of currents and cross currents, it indicates Mother’s visit to your mental region. When the sensation of excitement changes into pleasing expansiveness, when others speak your thoughts, when life moves towards you bringing you the man you want to meet, the things you want to acquire, when new rules are made to meet your new needs, when MORE is given to you than what you asked for, when an argument against you turns in your favour, when help arrives exactly on the minute, MOTHER IS there.

A man with a deep-seated inferiority complex developed a high strung tension and learnt to live with it, living a miserable inner life. He came to Mother’s Darshan and on the same day the entire terror dissolved forever. Another well-placed business executive of very fortunate circumstances in life developed a fond sentiment for the Vedas and learnt important portions, neglecting traditional injunctions. His unorthodox interest in the orthodox ways of Vedic lore had the very opposite result than he aimed at. His mind was torn by an unbearable tension to the point of having sleepless nights and nightmares for 15 years. He came to have Mother’s Darshan. When he entered Her room, even before coming in front of Her, Her gaze fell on him and wiped out the demon that had possessed his mind.

A professor of high academic education and attainment came to Mother’s balcony Darshan and found his mind falling silent and his thoughts ceasing, an experience he never had in life. A timid lady who used to fear everything and everyone came to the Ashram to renew contact with her sister lost several years before and was frightened beyond measure as to what would happen at the meeting. To her surprise, meeting her sister in the Ashram premises gave her a joy not known to her before.

Clever talebearers in a school carried false stories to the indecisive headmaster against a new teacher. He called a teacher’s meeting to discuss and decide on the 29 complaints. Being unprecedented in the 100 year tradition, every other teacher was panicky about the issue, since a weak boss was being handled by clever intriguers. In a potential atmosphere for any untoward turn, the meeting began on an uncertain note and led nowhere. The new entrant was a devotee of Mother and decided not to defend himself. He awaited the result. The foolish remarks of the talebearers provoked the headmaster who furiously turned against them for leading him into a situation he could not manage. He abused them publicly and dispersed the members. When the devotee does not defend himself, Mother defends him more fully than he can.

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18. SOME RELATED INFORMATION

Mother says the life of a man remains in the body after death for seven days. Life exists at several levels. When the heart stops, pulse stops, the body becomes cold, we declare a person dead. But deeper layers of life linger even after the body begins to decompose and finally leave the body only after seven days. In more developed cases of the soul, the period may be longer than seven days. The Indian habit is to cremate the dead body. Mother says when the body is burnt, the lingering life reacts and twists and turns the body sometimes. Burial is the best method according to Mother. It leaves the lingering life peaceful.

Mother accepts the service done to her devotees as service done to Her directly. Several traders, workers, doctors and other professionals offer paid service to Mother’s devotees as part of their regular work. Often they may not be even aware that the people whom they work for are devotees of Mother. Invariably every one of them prospers, as if they have done service directly to Mother out of dedication. The remuneration they draw in return for their service becomes, by an inverse logic of life, Mother’s Prasad to them. Likewise, there is a long list of people whose experiences illustrate this phenomenon. A money lender who lent a devotee a small sum got a troublesome partner removed from his firm; an agriculture labour supervisor who worked in one of Mother’s farms discovered water in his field well, which had been given up years ago as waterless; a school headmaster who offered a unique help to a devotee was promoted in his own religious hierarchy to an unprecedented height; a field labourer on Mother’s property became a community leader; a rickshaw man who was serving devotees received a permanent income five-fold higher for a fourth of his usual labour. To whomsoever the service is offered, Mother receives it from behind. When it is offered to Her devotees, She receives it as if it is directly offered to Her.

After coming to Mother, man finds his capacities increase and life offers rewards to the increased new capacities. As a result, average people rise to heights, incapable useless people become successful, even great, and labour leaders rise to political eminence.

It requires a great punya of past births to be part of Mother’s work, even if the individual is otherwise endowed. It is not endowment of personality that entitles a man to Mother’s service. It is only his poorva janma punya. Even if one is a dummy and good for nothing, such punya can bring him to Mother, Her work and Her service.

People who seek spiritual progress should still make an offering of a fruit or a leaf or a cup of water. It is an imperative in the scheme of spiritual fulfilment in human life. Only that material offering completes the last link between the eternal source of endless progress and the aspiring soul. Those in life whose prime requisite is not spiritual progress but material welfare must make a material offering. A Saivite brahmachari of over 70 years came to have Mother’s Darshan and on hearing the above explanation pronounced, "I seek only Mother’s Blessings. I am not in favour of material offering." His Darshan had several beneficial expressions in his life. His health grew in vigour. His face began to shine as never before. He began to adore Mother with sincere emotion. He was appointed as an approved water diviner by the state government. He, who had been used to 10 to 15 calls a year, now was called all the time and answered three or four calls on a single day. He said that in one year he did as much work as he had in the previous 30 years. But, he received only as much income as he had earlier or a little more. He was sore about it. He was pondering on that paradoxical situation of a mountain of work accompanied by no enhanced income. When he almost spoke aloud his situation, one who had been present at his earlier pronouncement, "No material offering", reminded him of his earlier stand. He quickly reversed his stand and sent an offering to Mother. All the money due to him came as if obeying invisible orders. He left for his native place, bought a piece of land and a house, dug a well, and settled down in retirement. Material offering is in place for those seeking material prosperity.

In my 29 years of experience, I have heard of several instances of Mother relieving the distress of her devotees. I have myself witnessed many of them. I have myself been instrumental in bringing devotees to Mother. In the next chapter, I would like to give a summary of all I know of under the title ‘What happens to you when you come to Mother?’