11. Mothers Unique Ways
With Her Children
12. India
13. Mothers Principles in Work
14. Nature, Climate, Weather
15. Gods
11.
MOTHER'S UNIQUE WAYS WITH HER CHILDREN
A tantric
guru who came to have Mothers 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 devotees 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 guides 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 devotees
entire area of emotional identification. If a devotee of Mother engages himself in a
certain kind of activityfor example, he purchases a yarn millMothers
influence over the entire spinning industry will be noticed. Not only the devotees
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
Mothers 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.
Mothers
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 Mothers 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 Mothers 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 Mothers 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 visitors 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 Aurobindos 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, Mothers 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
Aurobindos 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 Mothers 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 farmers activities and invited him and offered Rs.2 lakhs. Had
the Land Mortgage Bank been quick, the farmers 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 mutt 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 mutt. A Masters words have such power in
the material world. Mothers Power is real in the world of matter and can be felt as
such.
When a
person is a source of trouble, Mothers 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 Mothers 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 Mothers 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 Mothers room. When the elderly man heard this report, he frowned and
said that the whole thing existed only in his friends 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?
Mothers 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. Mothers 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 proprietors real interest was in the business wing. That began to prosper
limitlessly. Where the proprietors emotions were focussed 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 Mothers 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.
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
Mothers 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.
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 ones 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 mans 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 mans 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 mans 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 mans 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 nobodys 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 companys 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. Mothers 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.
To have constant endless
progress as a goal enlivens a business organisation. When a sugar mill was founded, the
owner sought Mothers 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. Mothers 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 years 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.
Mothers 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
Mothers rules is as good as following Mother herself. The more disciplined you are,
the closer you are to Mother.
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 historya 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.
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 childrens
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 mans 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
mans 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.
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 Aurobindos 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.
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 Mothers
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 Mothers 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 Aurobindos body. Mother says she saw with her own eyes Krishna
incarnating in Sri Aurobindos 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 Aurobindos 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.
[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.