(Dr. Sripada Gopalakrishna Murthy)
‘I have heard and read many positives about this Mother. Could you please tell me about the ‘notes’ pertaining to her?’ What do you mean by ‘nots’?
‘What she does not do, say or instruct’.
She does not eat as we do. We take break-fast, lunch and dinner every day and that is through regular timings. We take fruit and snacks etc. She doesn’t eat any.
‘Never?’
Never in the routine nor frequently in the exception. ‘How does she sustain her body and strength?
That is a mystery. She once answered a visitor’s question in that direction, by “Don’t you see trees doing that?” ‘Does she mean that she makes her food in her body?’ Possibly, Then again she does not dream.
‘How do you know that?’
The same way anyone can know. Through her report.
‘That is peculiar’
She does not sing.
‘Did anyone ask her?’
Yes, She said she would sing one day, and that in a way all would be able to hear.
‘So loud?’
I don’t know. I can’t guess.
‘The ‘nots’ seem to be more interesting than the positives, Yes, next please.’
She never turns away a visitor without giving him food. ‘That I heard already but not in the negative form.
Yes.’ She never disapproves of the spiritual practice of any visitor.
‘Yes. This is stronger as a ‘not’ than as a ‘yes’. But does she not even slightly modify a visitor ‘s method?’
Not its direction, never. She accelerates it in some cases, to the satisfaction of the seeker.
‘For example?’
She told a visitor “Since you can’t take the Name at fixed timings, take it whenever you have leisure to”.
‘Hm…… But this is not a ‘not’!’
Perhaps it is both a ‘yes’ and a ‘not’.
‘Next one please’.
She never quotes from the scripture.
‘I heard of this. And also that she does not use the vocabulary of the scriptural texts. But wait. How does she answer a visitor if he asks her for guidance using the scriptural vocabulary?’
She clarifies with the fundamentals instead of correcting the traditional meaning of the technical terms.
“Sankhya, Taaraka and Amanaska mean just what we tell, what we do and what we get ” she said to one. Everyone of her means is of scintillating brilliance but you may say that I am not telling you notes!
‘Any more?’
She does not dislike the taste of any food stuff.
‘That means that she…’
Likes the sour, sweet, bitter, hot, salt, all. She does not reject ‘You are not telling me next that she does not like any?’
Any.
I am. She doesn’t like anything in particular. A visitor asked her ‘Mother, you always wear silks, don’t you?’ Mother replied, “Nothing that way child. I do wear cottons, gunnies and nothing even. You do not know me in the latter two.”
‘My, what did she mean?”
Should just be what she said. I shall continue.
‘Yes?’
She does not acknowledge her miracles.
‘Why?’
She says that Nature itself abounds in miracles though miracles are not natural. Then – no two of her photographs are exactly similar.
‘What do you mean exactly?’
I saw a score of her early photographs at Jillellamudi. I wondered why they don’t look alike… Then, she never acknowledges our namaskar with any gesture, return of the act, blessing, or words like ‘Narayana’ or ‘Chiranjeeva’.
‘Why is it?’
She told me once that in this world, no one salutes any other..
‘Thereby meaning that –
Anyone salutes only himself.
‘Why that way’
Because there is no one else at all except himself. She never asks any visitor to get away from her ashram.
‘Why?’
She does not feel that anyone acts on an initiative other than the cosmic one. It is for the same reason that she never prescribes any particular spiritual practice to anyone. There is only one guru to anybody and that is ALL.
She does not believe in God, who is separate or distinct from the universe.
There is nothing like the past and future for her. There is only the present. “I laugh when people say yesterday or tomorrow,” she said.
‘That means that –
‘ She knows the past and future as we know the present.
Her teachings do not conform to any of the philosophic schools of teaching.
She does not use the sounds of language while talking to foreigners.
‘What do you mean?’
I mean she talked English in my presence with Miss Marva of America without making any word audible to me.
‘How do you know then that she spoke English?’
Miss Marva told me, when I asked her.
‘My God?’
What is the matter?
“The negatives pertaining to this Mother seem to be as positive as the positives.’ That is because she never contradicts or denies the truth of any spiritual dictum of any religion and of any time. She points at the true aspect of that statement. There is none too bad in her view,
‘Nor too good either?’
That is correct. She does not believe in an unchanging reality as Vedantisits would. And when change is the order in ALL, there is nothing to be disliked.
‘Nor to be particularly liked.’
That is the clue to her positives and negatives.