On the 22nd of October 1965, T. S. Sastry, one of the earlier visitors to Jillellamudi came to see Mother, accompanied by his wife. That day happened to be the sixteenth day after Sastry’s marriage, which is usually celebrated with festivity by the Hindus. At about six in the morning, Mother made the young couple sit together, fully dressed for the occasion, Mother put kumkum on their foreheads and applied coconut oil to their heads with a view to give them oil bath, strictly in the traditional manner. Then she broke coconuts in all the directions around the couple, waved coloured water before them and put yellow rice on their heads by way of blessing. Then she performed Arati with lighted camphor and employed two elderly women to give them oil bath.
It is of signigeance to note here that Mr. Sastry’s mother died of cancer a few years earlier and Mr. Sastry’s mind must have deeply felt her absence during the celebration of his marriage es- picially in those moments when his mother had a role to play in the ceremonial. Mother must have done all this to fill that gap in Sastry’s mind, being the mother herself.
After finishing his bath, Mr. Sastry dressed himself and sat before Mother and asked her “When I perforum puja with flowers and other articles of worship, I feel that everything is done by me mechanically; I do not get the necessary feeling. Why is it so Mother?” Mother replied:
“Now, as soon as you see me, tears flow from your eyes. But you don’t feel pained. Some people shed tears. unable to stand the love bestowed on them and on everyone individually. Even then it’s not pain that they feel. It’s bliss; and even that is a feeling.
“The feeling you are referring to may not be the same. But the feeling you are referring to is what they too experience. Suppose you visited a temple and bowed before the deity. The desire to how as soon as you saw the deity is also a feeling. Perhaps origin ally you had no idea of either the temple or bowing on to the deity, but you were passing that way casually. Then why do you enter? Did anybody invite you? Do you visit anybody’s house withou being invited? Entering the temple on the spur of the moment and bowing before the deity also denote a change in you. Such changes have been coming to you all the time without your being conscious of them.
“Suppose you were worshipping with flowers. Then, pecul iarly enough it occurs to you that if you put this flower next to that, it looks beautiful. You did not contemplate that before. When once you started arranging the flowers before the deity, such ideas occur to you of their own accord, and you arrange them spon taneousley. You derive pleasure by seeing all that. How can you say that all this is not a feeling? You only imagine that all this is quite natural and that the feeling of devotion is of a special type, different from all this. Because these feelings are known to you already, you are not satisfied with them. You may say that going to a temple is quite natural and you might ask what is peculiar about it. and how it can be described as the feeling of devotion? These are two types of bliss: the one you experience while doing the puja; the other is said to be experienced when one has lost the feeling that one is doing the puja. Only when we have experienced both the varieties do we know then. So far the experience of losing the awareness (that I am doing) has not come to you. How do you think that state would be? How that state is is not known. I do not say that there is bliss merely in the loss of awareness. Whether it is blissful or not, if the Mother and the puja alone exist in one’s awareness. to the exclusion of all other thoughts,-this is the third kind of bliss. It might be your conception that bliss is only felt in that state in which the awareness of Mother’s form alone is there and not in the state in which even the form of Mother vanishes from sight.
“Sometimes when you are experiencing either intense joy or sorrow, you would be so absorbed by it that you are completely unaware of what is happening around you. Similarly if something had gone wrong either at home or in the office that had disturbed you much, then you neither see, hear, nor know of what goes on around you. But the mood and its cause alone stand before your mind. This intensity of awareness is always experienced by all. though not always in relation to God or Mother. If related to Mother, you say that you meditated well, and that the mind attained poise. If it is experienced in relation to any other aspect of life. you don’t recognize it for such. The question is about the object of such an experience. It is being experienced in all other matters. The necessity of experiencing the same in relation to Mother did. not arise in you yet. Unless such yearning arises, it can’t be experienced. How does it arise then? The mental condition that fosters such yearning has not yet come about.
“Suppose you happened to break a precious article belonging to another, by mistake. Then you are afraid, dejected: you fail to know how to absolve yourself of the mistake. Then I might offer you coffee or nectar; I may take you into my lap to comfort you; but you can’t feel happy whatever might be done to you. Only that weighs on your mind. You may smile outwardly but the smile does not last long; thats’ no smile at all! Such a state must come to you even in your puja (in relation to God or Mother). Offer in puja whatever you feel like offering-lowers, for instance. But it is not the flowers that you should remember: it is not even how you are arranging them. But the form of the Mother must be firmly fixed in your mind.”
Sastry interrupted, “That’s it! I want to know how that is achieved.”
Mother replied: “It, comes! just as the other forms of it are there in every day life, it also comes about along with them. If you ask me when, I only say, it comes’. If you ask me ‘how’, I say that just as those states are caused by situations which are pleasant or sorrowful, it will be caused by a corresponding situation, of its own accord.
“By such a mental state might be meant either Bhakti (Devotion) or Pain (Baudha). There is no difference between love and devotion. The love that we feel for God is devotion; the love that we feel for a fellow human being is what we call love. The fixity of mind effected through anxiety is fear. You hate anyone as your enemy; and he is established firmly in your mind. That’s because you have so strongly meditated on him..
Someone interrupted Mother: “Do you mean that even by hating God with all his heart, one will be benefited?”
Mother: One must have the necessary state of mind even to do that! How intense the love must be before you can hate so completely? That is not possible unless you have intense love for God. Where there is no love, anger will never spring up.” Mother smiled as she uttered the last sentence.