When you enter into Mother’s chamber even when you are a new visitor, Mother’s smile greets you and She asks you even by a sign to seat yourself comfortably and forget yourself, you act unknowingly. When your chance comes, She enquiries of your personal details and whereabouts in a brief manner showering her motherly affection by her sweet voice and expressions. Therefore silence prevails for some time and the mind becomes a thoughtless spectator of the Divine Bliss flowing in her presence, with experience of indescribable satisfaction and joyous tranquility.
“This whole thing is to love AMMA (God) and taste the sweetness. She is sweet and the observer (devotee) is its enjoyer. The devotee drinks the sweet BLISS of AMMA (God). Further AMMA (God) is the Lotus and the Devotee, the BEE. The devotee sips the honey of the Lotus”. The Mother’s affection is so indescribable in words that you feel you have lost your presence as a child on the lap of the Mother, smiling and observing the Mother only during lulls of Bliss showered on you, perceived only by sense organs. This forgetfulness – a child’s nature when withdrawn, you are again thrown back to your worldliness (MAYA) feeling your physical presence sitting before the MOTHER. Then immediately you feel, what is this difference? What was I a few moments before? What am I now? You thus realize that this is the DIVINE fervor with which you were overwhelmed.
Then you start to reason and find out about this ecstatic state, source and presence as this was not experienced earlier on any occasion during the past. Finally an inference strikes your mind that this is Divine Ecstasy in Mother’s presence and Mother appears to be an Incarnation radiating this Bliss. Again doubts flash through the mind. Is She an Incarnation? She looks like any others, talks, behaves as one’s own mother, enquiring, patting, rejoicing and counseling the visitors and caressing them as the Mother, head of the world’s family. Thus the veil of maya and lila covers the thoughts to make us forget that Mother is an incarnation (the momentary enlightenment that had flashed earlier) and brings back worldliness to which we are accustomed and familiar. Except for this unnoticed miracle of coming back to worldliness the common man does not observe any other miracle as expected, read in mythological stories to have the final conclusion that he saw an incarnation.
For worldly men Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa in his discourses, in reply to common man’s queries had indicated as to how an incarnation behaves, their purpose and how to recognize them in the world which is stated below for our reference in this context.
“Ordinary people do not recognize the advent of an incarnation of God. He comes in Secret. A few sages like Bharadwaja adored Rama as nothing but the indivisible Satchidananda. They said ‘you have appeared before us as a human being, but you look like a man because you have shrouded yourself with your own Maya”. These Rishis were great devotees of Rama and had supreme love for God..
Can everyone comprehend Brahman, the indivisible EXISTENCE-KNOWLEDGE-BLISS ABSOLUTE? He alone who has attained perfect Love of God, who having reached the Absolute, keeps himself in the realm of the Relative order can enjoy the Divine Lila”.
Do we have such knowledge or caliber to reason and confirm whether AMMA IS AN incarnation? Have we such supreme Love for (God) AMMA? Have we such an untarnished longing to see God and to understand this incarnation?
“Even Incarnations of God accept the help of Maya to fulfill their mission on the earth. Not at all, by any means one can recognize an incarnation. Assuming a human body, the incarnation falls victim to disease, grief, hunger, thirst and all such things like ordinary mortals. In order to bring people spiritual knowledge, an incarnation of God lives in the world in the company of devotees, adopting an attitude of Love with the purpose of teaching man the ecstatic love for God. God incarnates Himself as a man. There is great accumulation of divinity in an incarnation like the accumulation of milk in the udder of the cow, the only place milk is to be got”.
As the incarnation conceals his presence with the help of maya and lives in the world among the people behaving with all human traits including sufferings as a common human being, the human mind distracted with worldly thoughts soon loses thought of the presence of an incarnation. Who has taught a just born calf that it should suck milk from the udder to satisfy its hunger and thirst? Is it nature? How is it known, when in the womb of the mother the senses of hunger not felt immediately appear and act when in this world as though it was taught earlier? This unknown source of knowledge only should dawn and illuminate the human mind to recognize at the proper time to enjoy the Divine Milk of Bliss from the incarnation. How this can happen and take place is further elaborated by the Paramahamsa as follows.
“Sometimes it is seen that the sun has hardly set when the moon rises in the sky. In an incarnation one sees at the same time, the Sun of knowledge and the Moon of Love. Can every one by mere wish develop knowledge and love at the same time? It depends on the person. One bamboo is more shallow than another. Is it possible to comprehend the nature of God? Can a one liter pot hold five liters of milk? But it is possible to obtain God’s grace, just like that. Some may get both Jnana and Bhakti at the same time. Time.
Only the Isvarakotis, such as the divine incarnations, experience Prema. “When prema is awakened the devotee not only feels the world to be unreal, but forgets even the body, which everyone loves so intensely. The matured stage of Bhakti is BHAVA. When one attains it, one remains speechless, thinking of Satchidananda. When Bhava ripens it becomes MAHA-BHAVA. Prema is the last and topmost of all. Unalloyed love of God is the essential thing. Whenever you want to see Him, you have to merely pull the rope. Prema is the rope by which you can tether God as it were. Whenever you call him, HE will appear before you. As the devotee cannot live without God, so also God cannot live without his devotee. Then the devotee becomes the sweetness and God its enjoyer. The devotee becomes the Lotus (child) and God the BEE (Mother). Thus sometimes God becomes the Magnet and the devotee the Needle, and sometimes devotee becomes the Magnet and God the Needle”.
The above explanation makes it clear that only a pure mind with ecstatic Love and deep longing only can recognize the incarnation and enjoy the bliss, bringing them together. Also it is possible to obtain God’s grace to enlighten us through HIS will and desire. Then how should we obtain this grace and possess the Prema to ultimately recognize the Mother’s Incarnation concerns us. From Paramahamsa’s further sayings the way can be found to reach the goal.
“God sports in the world as man (human being). He incarnates himself as man-as in the case of Krishna. Rama and Chaitanya. God has different forms and He sports in different ways. He sports as isvara, Deva, man and the Universe. In every age, He descends to earth in human forms as incarnation, to teach people Love and Devotion. One can taste devotion and Love of God only through his incarnation.
Infinite are the ways of God’s play but what I (you) need is Love and devotion. If you seek God, you must seek him in the incarnations. He manifests Himself more in a man than in any other being. If you see a person endowed with Ecstatic Love, overflowing with Prema intoxicated with His Love; then know for certain that God has incarnated HIMSELF through that man (person). The greatest manifestation of His power is through incarnation. It is ‘SHAKTI’ the ‘POWER’, of God that is born as Incarnation”.
Finally be certain that “The greatest manifestation of God is through his incarnation. The devotee should worship and serve an incarnation (as God) as long as HE LIVES in the Human Body, (and ever after)”.
Keeping in view the qualities and descriptions covered in the above sayings regarding incarnations, which fully agree with “AMMA” all doubts of worldly mind can be dispelled to obtain an implicit faith that MOTHER is none but an incarnation during the present time. Let us worship and serve MOTHER with gratitude to God for enabling our lives to witness an incarnation. Let us pray AMMA (Mother) with a longing heart to lift the veil of maya and to reveal “Herself” fully to us, showering Her GRACE to make our lives worthy and holy during Her presence – Note (Passages quoted are from the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
JAYAHO MATA SRI ANASUYA
RAJA RAJESWARI SRI PARATPARI”
(Reproduced from Matrusri, August, 1986′)