Mother: I am having a headache. Every little thing concerning Hyma recurs.
Doctor: They wonder: “Suffering for even Mother!”
Mother: They are habituated to think like that. When there is something like the body, all kinds of things exist.
Bharadwaja: One says: “How can there be suffering for her!” Another explains: “She must be experiencing something here now, something that must have happened somewhere, sometime”. Still another says” “She does have a body. And she suffers like all of us!” Are these four views true? what is that part of you which is subject to suffering?”
Mother: The same one truth which appears in four different ways to four persons.
Bharadwaja: How can one become four ?
Mother: We eat mangoes. That it creates heat is one truth about it. Another truth is that it is not (properly) digested.
Doctor: Then, that you suffer is true, Isn’t it?
Mother: True because the body exists.
Doctor: Why do (such) difficulties arise… for you ?
Mother: Because of the mind – they happen since the mind is there. And because of that mind only they are gone. Even if you don’t observe it, there is suffering. Suppose I tell you: “Do like this.” Then you may think that I spoke like that because there is suffering. Or, you may think: “She said that for some reason.”
Doctor: We might think that it is a symptom of somebody’s illness.
Mother: It’s a symptom of my own sickness. No one else’s. Bharadwaja: Why suffer? They disappear if you remove them. (You can!)
Mother Removing them arises only when there’s the feeling that they shouldn’t come at all: Along with all other things that exist, they (suffering) also exist. Saying this, Mother got up to have her bath.
-(Conversation No. 11)
We generally assume that persons like Amma are not subject to suffering. This seems not a general but also a genetic belief, a biological one. In addition, the strong conviction that suffering is unwelcome. We should have only a “comfort zone” of living. Given a choice we would not like to have the pain of even a tiny pinprick of a syringe for medical purposes even. But then pain is physical but suffering is of the mind – as Mother affirms.
What cannot be avoided must be endured: whether gracefully or forcefully is yours (non-existent !) choice. Moreover, this Amma with her apparently simple but profound logic says: that which is there without our willingness or wish, how does the question of getting rid of it arise. That which is not only biological but psychological – genetic and psychic has to be accepted – and why not joyously? you need not be even religious to accept this. This is natural matham (o) which ought to be acceptable to all (30). Whether one is a doctor or a mystic!
The devotees of Amma shared my recent sorrow with a poignant sense of intense togetherness and felt inwardness. I can only quote the memorable words of Shakespear: “often good turns are shuffled off with such uncurrent pay : ‘thank you !’