6. Life                                                                
7. Education                                                      
8. Mother’s Ways of Answering Her Devotees  
9. Prayer                                                         
10. Grace                                                           

 People have understood that a rosy path leads to a nasty place in life. If one should succeed in life, he has to face trials and tribulations. Life is a field of struggle. Accomplishments in life are awarded to those who seek adventure. Naturally, a life of adventure is a life of struggle. This is the character of life the world knows.

 Mother gives another dimension to life. Struggle ensues when the effort is aimed at a possibility of two types—success or failure. Effort, when it moves towards a possibility of two types of success, is no longer a struggle but is enjoyable. Ordinarily Mother removes the possibility of failure from life and offers the alternatives of two types of success. She does not remove effort, but the struggle part of the effort is removed. This is true on a great majority of occasions. She does not eliminate failure altogether. She keeps the possibility of failure for the rare few whose destiny is for a far greater success than they are seeking for. Mother’s award of failure is the passport to greater success. Human life is full of falsehood. It is the presence of falsehood that necessitates the struggle and keeps the possibility of failure around the corner. There is no scope for falsehood when one is working in Mother’s consciousness. Therefore the struggle part is eliminated and the possibility of failure does not exist.

 Mother summarises her yoga in terms of life. She says, to know God it is enough to come out of ordinary mind. The ordinary mind presides over life and pervades it. Living inside the ordinary mind, man faces struggle, the prospect of failure, and their entire brood of expectation, irritation, frustration, disappointment, pain, etc. Coming out of the ordinary mind, one would expect that he would come out of all these constrictions; but Mother says, coming out of it one knows God. It is a summary way of saying that God waits for man to turn to him, while all the time man is inextricably involved in his own ordinary mind through habits that are ingrained. The poet says the world is too much with us.

One’s karma, if not repeated, is abolished, says Mother. This is contrary to our tradition.

The ideas of Mother and Sri Aurobindo are revolutionary in the extreme. From the beginning neither of them set great store by formal education that leads to a degree. Sri Aurobindo felt that if one learns one subject with a certain thoroughness, his education will be complete and he has the essential equipment to acquire any other subject by himself. He did feel that history and biographies are great educators. The school they founded in the Ashram for the children of the devotees teaches English and French and awards no degree at the completion of the higher level course, a procedure not usually followed anywhere.

Mother’s view on education, especially on the capacity of the human mind, is perhaps unique. She feels any man can do anything, if he chooses. She does not see any inherent limitation in the mental capacity. It is known that one’s intelligence does not increase during one’s life-time. What varies is its extent of application or the experience it draws upon. But Mother says that if one chooses to be in touch with his Psychic Being, his intelligence starts increasing. Mother gives the example of a rustic girl of low intelligence who, during the period she was in touch with her psychic being, learned to perform ballet dance at high levels which requires greater intelligence.

“Concentrate on the body, you fall ill; concentrate on your vital, you get depressed; concentrate on your mind, you go mad” is her description of human nature as expressed by the body, nerves and mind. In other words, the parts of being in a man are fully unconscious. Their normal capacity expresses smoothly when we are not actively giving them consideration. It may be the experience of many that when you are in doubt about the spelling of a less known word, if you simply write it down, the correct spelling comes out. When the construction of a sentence is questioned, people often speak it out and the right form emerges. Whether it is spelling or construction, originally we have consciously learnt them correctly. With the passing of the years the skill has moved from the conscious to the subconscious part of the mind. The subconscious remembers it correctly. Any stumbling is only in the conscious part. This is why when we start writing or speaking, the right form comes out ‘automatically’, as we say. Similarly, the health of our body, joy in the vital and clarity in the mind have moved down to the subconscious or unconscious, as the psychologists call it, and function smoothly. Our concentration on them makes them conscious and brings in the disorder. Their order is in the subconscious. We should not make them conscious if we want them to maintain their order.

Mother offers a great secret of life to us if we wish to enjoy permanent happiness. Life becomes miserable for us only when we expect others or events to behave as we want them to. Obviously this is not what we notice in our behaviour, though our behaviour is shot through and through with this attitude. First, the world around us is not going to oblige our wishes. On the face of it, it is not practical or rational. If we change our attitude, our misery will disappear. It comes in a subtle way into our thoughts. We do not openly expect people to behave according to our wishes. What we expect them to do is the ‘right thing’. Under the guise of rightness, we smuggle in our expectations. A classical example is the parents who seek to arrange for the marriage of a son and a daughter. All the complaints they voice when they seek an alliance for the daughter are perfectly legitimate, rational and right. When the very same people seek an alliance for their son, the whole attitude comes out in full. They are found behaving just like the parents of their son-in-law. People who plead for fairness on one occasion refuse to offer the same fairness in a similar situation in which they are the principal actors. That is what Mother means when she says that people want others to behave according to their own wishes. When the supramental force descends, it is necessary to create a bridge between the old and new worlds. Mother says women are better fitted to create that bridge. Women are better equipped as constructive creators, says Mother. They know how to handle the power of truth.

Mother has pronounced ideas on violence. She feels it is permissible only for self-defense.

The brightness of the Lord, his original splendour, is so intense that even the sun looks faded before Him.

Mother does not distinguish between ordinary life and spiritual life. For Her there is a less conscious life and a more conscious life. In other words, when man in ordinary life becomes more conscious, he becomes spiritual and his life becomes a spiritual life.

‘Turn the other cheek to your enemy who smites you on one cheek’ is a famous thought in religion. With the enemy, Mother says, you must love him. In a mood of bravado one may turn the other cheek with the inner emotions still remaining the same. But, at heart in the emotions, one must have only love for another, be it a friend or an enemy.

Nations of the World

Each nation has a special endowment of its own. France is known for her intellectual clarity and chivalry, Germany for her innovation, Japan for honour and beauty, USA for practical organisation, and India for spirituality.

When world politics was discussed, Mother said she found the Russians more sincere than the Western politicians.

In areas where people have energy, training, good upbringing, skill, capacity and a fairly long tradition of having functioned successfully at a certain level, they rarely face problems. In such areas not only do they have experience in using the materials available for a certain accomplishment, they also have the capacity to manage when resources fall short. A member of an agricultural family comes into that category when he has to cultivate, a child of a professor in the field of education, a Chettiar youth with limited means in a trade. That is what we describe as culture or tradition in the society with respect to social survival. Traditional skill achieves successfully in circumstances of plenty. Even in unfavourable circumstances it manages very well, but often feels the sore lack of resources. Should this lack be made good, e.g. sufficient water supply to an agriculturist, his problem vanishes.

Problems arise from external circumstances owing to continuous drought, lawlessness, communal tension and many other similar external conditions that affect the entire population. They too have a solution in Mother, but that is not what we are presently considering.

Similarly, for individuals born in a poor family, poverty is a long-term perennial problem. People born with physical handicaps have come into this world with a problem. Though these too are human problems, concerned individuals and the society they are born in consider them not as problems of the individual but relegate them to a different category. They accept the status quo as a reality with a sense of resignation. Solution for such issues is available in Mother’s life.

If we eliminate several categories of the above description, what is generally considered as a human problem can be described as the situation of individuals belonging to a particular social level not being able to maintain that level for one reason or another. If three boys in the house are educated and employed, while the fourth is not able to complete his studies and settle down in life, this is a problem for the boy as well as the family. What is a sour problem for him may not constitute a problem for another boy of a lower social level trying to become a graduate in the first generation. When he is not able to take a degree, this boy settles down as a shop assistant, which is socially one level higher than his father who was a farm labourer.

In other words, general human problems arise in one’s life when one essential component of the personality is lacking. When such people come to Mother and pray for the removal of their problem, Mother either quickly removes the problem through one of the existing favourable circumstances around him—e.g. get a girl quickly married—or she gives him the necessary energy so that the missing skill develops and his problem is permanently removed. In a particular case, a boy, as I described above, failed in the examination and faced a serious problem. He came to have Mother’s Darshan and returned home. To his utter amazement, he was taken to Madras by the son of the chairman of an automobile company and given a job. While he was at the Ashram, this favourable circumstance developed at home through a neighbour.

In this case Mother acted through one of Her ways, her way of granting the highest aspiration of the devotee, whether voiced or not. When the boy saw Mother, though his mind would have thought of passing the examination, he would have harboured in his depths a desire to get employed in a big company. He was a fatherless boy brought up by kind relatives. A job in a big company and this boy were poles apart. When the boy was at the Ashram, the daughter of the chairman of that company came to lunch at her neighbour’s house. The boy’s mother was called by the neighbour’s family to help serve the lunch. The dignitary came to like the lady at service and asked whether she could give any help. That miraculous circumstance got the boy a job he could never dream of. This is one way of Mother granting the prayer of her devotees. Let us consider different types of problems and see how Mother solves them.

1)    Granting the devotee’s highest aspiration

The story of the boy illustrates Mother’s way of granting the highest aspiration of the devotee, voiced or unvoiced. Delayed marriage, employment, delayed sale of a property or right price for a valuable property represent this category along with numerous other things.

The devotee has a conscious desire, while he also has a deeply felt desire. The conscious desire in the above illustration was to pass in the examination. It is in the mind. The deeply felt but unvoiced aspiration in this case was a job in a reputable company. That is in the subconscious. What is there in the mind is voiced through a prayer. What is in the subconscious, though unvoiced, rises and spreads around in a subtle vibration. That is a powerful vibration which reaches Mother’s answering consciousness more quickly than a prayer from the mind. Hence the fuller fulfilment of the unvoiced aspiration.

A need, a desire, a possibility or even an impossibility gets granted by the Mother in the above fashion.

1)    Problems that we have which not many others have

We seem to be singled out for special suffering sometimes. Under this category comes a long list of problems like delayed promotion, a son in USA wanting to cancel his studies, a thesis lying unapproved for a long time, an unjust court case, indigestion, chronic diarrhea, incomplete studies, abandoned projects, an irresponsible husband, wife or child, etc.

The theory behind all these problems is that there is some deficiency in the person or in the circumstances. The deficiency may be in intelligence or nervous strength or capacity to accomplish or favourable circumstances.

A simple but genuine prayer of the sufferer reaches Mother. She either removes the insufficiency in the circumstance or in the devotee’s being. Once that is removed, the problem is readily and fully solved.

2)    Problems that have been precipitated out of our own conscious doings

Neglected studies, wasted wealth, betrayal through trust in bad characters, buying properties that are not economically viable, marrying an irresponsible man and expecting him to change, duties to the family neglected, investment in dubious projects, etc.—in such cases, the bad results are no surprise to anyone. Normally in life, if a man has ever bitten one of these baits of misfortune, he never rises again. He is lost forever. Very rarely do people come out of these dangerous situations. But with Mother the situation is always fully rectified, though there is a condition for that.

As a minimum, before praying to Mother, the devotee must realise his folly and decide to stop further acts of irresponsibility. At the physical level of his behaviour he must change, e.g. the boy who neglected the studies should start reading. If this much is done and a prayer is voiced to Mother, the entire wrong done to his life gets corrected. Only that he must change his objectionable ways. Many in life have fully realised and changed too, but life does not restore the lost money or property. Mother always restores them.

One question arises. In certain cases, there is nothing for a man to change now. It is too late because the property is lost or a government job has been resigned. Obviously there are situations that are past remedy. Here one thing is still possible. The mental attitude with which the original folly was committed is still available in the mind. One must come forward to change it now. If a boy who has wasted his time and let the chance of examination pass now changes his mind, we say he has realised his error. After such a genuine realisation, if a prayer is voiced, it will be granted in double measure. New circumstances come, new energy releases itself from inside, new contacts appear, new rules or laws are enacted. Life for the penitent devotee takes on wings. He ends up twice higher than he originally aimed.

3)    Consequences of Karma in earlier lives

An honest officer is unjustly punished by vindictive politicians; a hard working student expected to top the state list is prevented from appearing for the examination by circumstances; a soft spoken man marries a termagant wife; an angel of a woman gets an uneducated poor blockhead because he is a maternal uncle, etc. These are explained as karmic consequences.

“Karma must be suffered. No one can escape it unless he is a realised soul,” says the tradition. Faith in Mother and a deep prayer removes the immediate result and fully dissolves the power of karma.

4)    Karmic consequences of acts done in the past years which one continues

Whatever the karma, if the devotee now comes forward to stop those activities that have generated the karma, Mother wipes out the consequences. The devotee’s part is to stop those activities.

Prayer to Mother by such persons for the solution of a problem in a project where his karmic deeds have accumulated—and which he refuses to stop—will yield copious results in every other area of his life except in the project for which he prays.

5)    A man having pronounced capacity way above others languishes at the ordinary level

This can be a problem classified as unrewarded potential or unfulfilled ambition. A clerk whose official knowledge and capacities were unrivalled, could not appear for the government examination because he lacked a few marks in one subject. For 10 years he had been working in leave vacancies of 10, 15, 30 days. An industrious, frugal householder had been gathering house-building materials on his plot for 25 years, but for want of a substantial sum was never able to begin building a house. A group of highly skilled, capable, industrious labourers from a village had to walk to a town five miles away for daily wage labour. An extremely honest, industrious contractor who had done 17 years of serious work found his money spread among his clients uncollected.

People of this description are talented, honest, and hard working. Life has given them no fulfilment. If they come to Mother, they need not even pray. Their hard work is prayer enough. What life has not given them, Mother gives at the first contact even without prayer, because their honesty is purity and their work is the prayer of the very body. Life is not able to give them rewards, even though they have several endowments, because they lack something essential in their personality that prevents all other endowments coming to fruition. Life is a field where you get back as much as you give. It does not give you more than what you give it, because it cannot. In the above examples, I know what was lacking in each case. But Mother is a field of creative consciousness. She gives much more than what man offers to Her. Therefore, she is able to compensate for what is lacking in the man and offer him rewards for the other existing endowments. Life is like a cement tub that contains the water you have poured into it. Mother is a spring that gives more than what it appears to have. Truly, Mother starts giving more and more when your capacity to receive is greater. The more you take out of Her, the more She offers you.

6)    Your capacities are lifted very high and accomplishments sail towards you

When the faith, service and inner contact with Mother are steady and constant, such results issue.

A layman taking interest in technology accomplished very well. In three years the project he founded became the biggest of its kind in the world. A man from no field wrote his first book and in two years it was published in five languages. A state level officer at the junior-most executive post was elevated, overlooking twelve of his superiors, to the post of the chairman of the all-India organisation he was serving. A Rs.1,000 employee rose to the status of buying a Rs.200 crore old English project in a period of 15 years, thus reaching the social pinnacle. These individuals had simple but deep faith. To one of them loyalty and honesty are second nature. Another is an extremely good man and constitutionally he cannot be anything other than good. The third is one whose family virtue of obedience and loyal sincerity are a way of life for him.

Mother gives, gives and goes on giving. She can give only LOVE, a mother’s love. Our capacity to receive is a limitation. Even then, when one area of receptivity is filled to overflowing, She discovers in you other areas where she can give. Effort, purity, goodness, faith, service, and constant inner contact endlessly expand our receptivity. If we are not pure in one area, She gives in other areas. If we do not take effort, she chooses to give us things that we can effortlessly accept. If we are not good by nature, Mother gives us occasions in which we can only be good and makes that a channel for us to receive. If we are karma-ridden, she gives us opportunities to wipe out our karma. If we do not respond to Mother, She gives whatever is possible in the context. If we have no faith, She looks for one in our group or family who has faith and gives us through his faith. If we go away from Her, She calls us to Her again and again.

If your parents do not love you, Mother gives you affectionate teachers and friends. If you are lazy Mother accomplishes your work through another’s dynamism. If you are utterly irresponsible, Mother has your responsibility discharged through another’s wider sense of responsibility. If you have faith in medicine, She cures you through medicine. If you believe in systems She accomplishes your work through systems. If you believe in law, She sends you protection through law. If you foolishly trust a bad character, She makes him offer honest behaviour only to you. If you help malicious venomous people, She keeps your head above water blissfully. If you get into serious trouble, She offers you excellent openings to get out and She gives without asking. She gives more than what you ask for. She  makes misers generous with you. She enacts new rules and laws to serve your particular need exactly. She gives you unimagined capacities, inconceivable opportunities. Above all She gives you the joy that pervades you inside and outside. BUT as devotees we should endeavour to be scrupulously clean, honest, active, good-natured, self-giving, thoughtful, resourceful and above all constantly remember Mother with love and devotion for Her own sake, for the joy She is and the light She is.

Mother says now that the new consciousness is there in the atmosphere, it responds to anyone who seeks it. She gives an example of it from a news report. There was a news report in great detail about a man in a hospital who went into shock from an injection of penicillin. After some time the doctors gave him up for dead, but slowly the man got better and eventually fully recovered. Later he explained how he felt the cells in his body begin to die and death spread up to the heart. When the shock brought him death and his cells were quickly dying, something in the man decided that he would not give up. Against his decision, death was spreading to different parts of his body. But he would not give up. Finally it reached the heart and affected that too. The man was not deterred, even after his heart was affected. At long last, at the very last moment, death relented and his efforts were rewarded. He found the dead cells began to revive. It was not he who would give up. He persisted and persisted, till he fully revived.

On hearing this report, Mother commented that the new force in the atmosphere responded to his perseverance. His perseverance was great indeed.

Mother says She puts a spark of hers as her emanation in the devotees who accept her. It gets lodged in their souls and stays there forever. Mother holds herself responsible for anyone who has met her, even if the meeting was only for a second. Mother was seen stopping her work for a minute and then resuming. She says when ardent calls reach her and are ‘audible’ to her, she stops her work to send her response.

One night during her sleep Mother ‘heard’ someone frantically calling her. She woke up and ‘saw’ a man was leaning against a door and calling her. Next day Mother learnt the news that Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri had died at Tashkent the previous day. Much later reports came to her about Shastri’s dying moments, which confirmed her vision of him.

Mother says this new power in the atmosphere is acting so that inextricable situations find solutions and people rise up from their death bed.

Different ways in which people accept Mother

People accept Mother in several ways and at several levels of their lives and faith. The following are some of them.

1.    Mother is accepted as Divine by those who come here as casual visitors and who occasionally pray to her.

2.    She is accepted by devotees who rely on her for serious work. There are other regular visitors to the Ashram who have taken to Mother but they are unconcerned about results in life.

3.    Sadhaks accept her and pray to her only for spiritual progress.

4.    People accept her as one who would do something because Mother has approved of it. Others would not do something because Mother has disapproved of it.

5.    One can accept Mother and change his behaviour to follow Her. At a deeper level one can accept her and change his character to follow her. At the deepest level people come forward to change their consciousness so as to follow Mother.

6.    People who are examples of excellence in their own lives, because of that characteristic, are devoted to Mother. She is accepted by those who do work as Nishkamya karma.

7.    There are those who would like to live their lives only relying on Her. Others never pray for anything.

8.    A true child soul seeks total identification with Her.

Another classification of how people relate to Mother

Sadhaks, devotees, visitors and others can also be classified in a slightly different fashion.

1.    We can accept Mother as one to whom we run in a crisis. This is to accept Mother as our SAVIOUR.

2.    We pray. The prayer is granted. We accept Her as one to whom we can pray. This is to accept Mother’s Divinity, as one of the several gods to whom we pray.

3.    To know the truth of Mother’s avatarhood and accept Her as such is to accept Mother as the Mother of creation.

4.    To accept Mother as one to whom we refer all our major works before we commence them is to consider Her as the source of all our major existences.

5.    To accept Mother as one to whom we refer all our minor works before we commence them is to consider Mother as the origin of our entire existence and functioning.

6.    We can accept Mother as one who can give us anything we pray for, provided that our prayer is a right one. This is based on a belief, “Mother can give, but my prayer must be right”. This is to conceive of Mother as the origin of all good in creation.

7.    We can accept Her with the idea that only Mother’s solution is needed. If it is not there, I must change. No other solution is possible. I do not need another solution. This implies exclusive reliance on Her.

8.    To accept Mother as one who is adorable, who enlivens memory, and whom the memory always seeks is based on constant remembrance.

9.    To see Mother constantly inside oneself is constant presence.

10.   To be Mother in word and deed is identification in outer life.

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.

 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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