(Continued from the previous issue)
[This is the concluding instalment of a very interesting and signifi cant conversation that took place between the Mother, and an old lady of Bapatla by name Rajamma, Mother who visited that lady on pretext of being initiated by her and through her, finally bestoured on her the final experience of all spiritual endeavour thereby establishing her absolute oneness with the Universal Mother]
Rajamma: Was the experience that I had during the night real, or was it a dream or a phantasy?
Mother: How do I know whether you had dreamt, or heard a tale? I just came to see you.
R: It is not to see me but to grant me the sight of your from that you have come, Mother!
M: Is it to give birth to you and rear you that I had come?
Rajamma was surprised to hear these words. Once again the vision she had on the previous night stood before her mind’s eye clearly; she lost her awareness of the body; her eyes were tear-filled; a few seconds passed like that in ‘pregnant’ silence.
R: Yes it’s true; how aptly you have put it! You are the true begetter and sustainer of all this Creation; that is what I had realised yester-night and that is what I heard from you just now. How fortunate
M: Who is fortunate?
R: Whoever it be…. I have something to tell you.
M: What’s simple or great about a thought? The same thought might appear to one as being simple and to another as being significant.
R: Be it so, but hear me….
M: Have I not been hearing? All that I hear is but your word. All that stirs in me is but your consciousness. Even the change in Creation is all your movement.
R: As you are in such a state of perfection, it is natural that you should see Perfection in every one.
M: You have recognised it and that is your great ness!
R: The peace that is in you has enabled me to recognise! Please accept atleast a morsel of food from me. I shall put before you some of my wishes. Shall I?
M: Yes you may ask; when it is you that make me do, why should I fear?
R: It is no trouble to you; it is your responsibility
M: Bestow the sweet responsibility on me. If what you ask is what is possible for me to do, there is no difficulty. But if it is impossible. ?
R: Nothing is impossible for you.
M: That which happens is the possible. That which is (merely) talked about is the impossible. Because it is just in the stage of being talked about..
R: Lord! Whatever be your state please be talking with me like this always. As you are talking, I am sometimes listening to the music of several musical instruments!
M: Are you really hearing them or feeling them? If you are hearing, it is all right. But if you are feeling, it is not real hearing.
R: Mother, scholars say that in certain states ten varieties of instrumental music is heard (from within). When and in which state they are heard I do not know. I do not know whether what they say is true. But on the previous night I heard them myself.
M: They could be heard in every word!
R: That might be possible for you: but I am hearing them in every word that you are speaking and that too, since yesterday night only. I want to hear the story of your life.
M: My life is itself unbound; (my) history is limited I had already told you so.
R: How difficult it is to understand your words!
M: You have understood that already!
R: What is it that I have understood?
M: That nothing is known. Deception and Truth, child and God all these forms have been recognised (by you). Even though all of them cannot be recounted now, if all that had happened till now is kept in view, then I am understood not in one way but in many ways; for the One is the Many. That is why I am understood in different ways. You are the Many.
R: God! I feel as though some one is speaking all this from behind you……… yet how meaningless it is to say “from behind you!” Mother. again and again I am erring…….. It’s all like a story. It is you that would expound the meaning of all Mantras and not 1.
M: Yes! only if you make me expound them.
R: What a Mother you are!
M: The mother that begot.
R: What did you beget (or see)?
M: I am the mother that begot you, you are the mother that begot me. Who is Mother and who is not Mother?
R: Can’t you (ie., your words) be grasped, mother?
M: Why not-if you have the net that grasps?
R: Where is it to be found?
M: The net that holds lies with the Maker.
R: Will you show Him to me?
M: All anxiety is because He can not be seen.
R: Oh, is it He (you mean)?
M: Yes, This is He.
R: Are you the net that catches and the one that is caught?
M: Why all this for me? You are enough.
R: Mother, I am slipping into error at every step! There are two ways (of teacher-disciple relation ship) the way of the cat and kitten and the way of monkey and its young one.” Whether 14 I hold on to you or you hold me, it is all the same. Mother, let my ignorance envelop me again and again and thereby afford me the chance to ask you and be enlightened by your replies. The greater and the lesser, the good and the evil only when this duality exists, does bliss (Ananda) exist. That bliss is but your (real) form of Brahman!
M: Bliss is different from happiness. That which is experienced in dualism is happiness! That which transcends duality is bliss. Bliss is the nature of Brahman. Guru (the Teacher) is Brahman. You are that Guru.
R: You are applying it again to me!
M: You had described the two ways yourself (i.e. teacher-disciple relationship)! I did not specially apply it to you myself.
R: Mother, I have to tell you this- When I told you that you would get a dream, I got a strange dream, myself. In that dream I had witnessed all that has happened now. I wondered at it, though I had strange promptings of it. What had happened with regard to the child of the scavenger the day before yesterday had partly confirmed the promptings. At that moment ! thought that I am about to experience profound changes; but I did not expect that you would come to me in this form, and that I would have such experience as I had, and I did not expect to realise so directly that you are the Supreme Goddess. Even then, as you are in the form of an all too common housewife. I need the story of your life. That should become the scripture of the future, so I think, in view of what I had seen in my dream. Yet I wish to know whether what I had dreamt is true.
M: Describe your dream to me in full and I shall see for myself how far it tallies with facts, whether it will be a guide to right conduct, or whether it would be one that moulds the course of events in a way not known either to you or to me.
R: But I am shivering at the recollection……….
M: Did you see all that in your sleep? Was it a dream
Did you see it when you kept me sitting here? Or, are they merely suggesting themselves to you? Did you see (in your dream) only the events that took place since my arrival here yesterday, or did you see all the events since my birth?
R: Mother, is this apparent Teachership’ of mine intended for me, or for the sake of the world? Please tell me this in your words.
M: But whatever I am saying has been occuring to your mind! Is it not enough?
R: Yes, all the solutions (to my questions) are occ uring to my mind. I am only desirous to hear your voice, to enjoy the sweetness of the matching of your expression to your thoughts. That was why I had wished earlier that I should be again and again curtained by ignorance. Instead of striking me as the ultimate divinity, if you appear to me like a common individual and con verse with me, the gist of your answers shall be thy beneficience. Whoever might sit by you and speak to you, sublime thoughts and words occur of their own accord to them. Do they not?
The teacher disciple relationship is said to be of these two types, by the Indian scriptures. In the former, it is the teacher that holds the disciple who merely resigns himself to the teacher’s will; in the latter, it is the disciple that holds the teacher and saves himself from ignorance. The one signifies grace, the other signifies Faith.
M: How do I know that? I don’t say that it happened owing to my presence; I say it happens because it should. Some get the apt words handy; others get angry (by my presence); yet others weep. All are not experiencing the same state, though.
R: They experience according to their destiny. M: That is the usual jargon.
R: When you come to me next time, please tell me about Mantra and Sudhand as you had practiced. from the beginning. Won’t you be coming to me again?
M: If you make me come here, I do.
R: Do they permit you?
M: Even that depends on your grace. R: How mistaken I am! Oh, how swiftly thoughts rush through my mind! Living as a serfect house-wife, with perfect mastery of both Oh no. Yoga and Mantra, your birth is characterised by complete realization of the two paths. your’s is no common birth; it is the descent of the divine (Avatara). Besides, in the ancient scri ptures, it was declared that Woman is unfit to tread either of these paths, and that devotion to the husband is her only path. I feel that you are the Divinity manifested in this form to show by example that woman is fit to tread these paths; I feel that you are the Goddes of Patience; I feel as though, in this form of yours, you are pointing it out to me, patting on my back as it were!
M: There is nothing unusual about it to the Mother who is the Beginning.
R: How lightly you speak of it!
M: It is becoming manifest. The day has dawned on which it (i.e. her divinity) should become manifest (to every one). This is the day (24th August, 1949); every one would hear of this day, on some other day in future.
R: Child, it is twelve O’Clock now, the same hour at which you had tasted a morsel of food yesterday I told you that I would serve you today. Won’t you eat? Come, let us sit together; fetch the leaf plate.
As Mother was cutting a plantain leaf into its size, Rajamma said; ‘Child, let the leaf be a big one. Does your son eat rice?”
M: No.
R: You are too weak dear, to suckle him. Why don’t you give him rice?
M: He has his share, dear. How can he be denied what he has (in store) and how can I refuse what I should give him? Whatever duty falls to one’s lot can’t be avoided. You are so bent with age; you serve us this food of different tastes though you are so weak. That can’t be avoided by any one.
Mother entered the house with the leaf plate.
Rajamma asked Mother to arrange everything for lunch and to fetch everything that the cook would give her. As Mother entered the kitchen, Smt. Subbamma, the daughter-in-law of Rajimma. came there and greeted Mother.
“Oh, when did you come here, girl? Have you not been living in this town?”
“No” replied Mother.
Subbamma, while applying Kumkuni to her fore-head, was surprised to notice the Kumkum on Mother’s fore-head flash brilliantly and exlaimed “What sort of Kumkum is your’s!”
“It is the Kumkum that sanctifies” smiled as she replied. Mother
“It shone like a star and I asked”. Subbamma explained herself. “Tell me, what have you come for”, she continued, “Have you been ailing”? For people hoped that Rajamma would heal the ailing by her spiritual power.
“Yes, that’s why I have come. I am suffering from the ailment of Birth”, Mother replied.
Rajamma who was waiting for the lunch got
impatient and called Mother in an angry tone.
“God! She is angry. How are you going to swallow it?” Subbamma expressed her concern.
“That which has to be swallowed cannot be (another’s) anger; it is medicine in fact. The remedies that I have to swallow are already there, decided” Mother replied.
“But before you leave this place, see me once” Subbamma requested Mother.
“If (the time of) my departure is known, then I shall come to you before going away”, Mother replied in her characteristic quizzical manner.
Mother gathered all the dishes that the cook had given her and was leaving the kitchen, when she heard Subbamma speak about her to some other lady in the house; the other lady spoke disparagingly of Mother’s orthodox and traditional manners and dress.
R: Why did you delay so long?
M: I did not cause it; it happened.
Rajamma was moved to see Mother carrying her younger son Ravi in one hand, and the dishes in the other and said
“Put the child down; else, your side would ache. Were you carrying the child in your hands all the time? How could you carry these dishes while carrying the child?”
M: I carried the child and the child carried some of the things.
R: How quick witted are your replies! You never search for them!!
M: Where is the question of searching? They are not kept anywhere and forgotten.
R: Yes. yes; come, child, come; you serve the meal with your hands in the leaf plate.
M: I will serve it myself but you must show me how and instruct me.
R: Didn’t you serve meal to anyone before?
M: I did. But in the presence of elders, I always do only after consulting them.
R: How obedient and obliging you are, child!
M: It is all your blessing.
R: What is ‘Blessing’?
M: (It is) the undifinable.
R: Your replies are ever ready; there is a sweetness in your tongue.
Mother put the leaf-plate and a tumbler of water on the ground and asked “Whatshould I do next?”
R: Clean the leaf-plate first, apply ghee to it and serve the various Padarthas.
M: All are Padardhas.? But what does Padarthas mean? Is it the meanings of words’ or ‘materials”?
R: Oh! it’s neither I only meant the side- dishes.
M: Does it mean side dishes only, or all dishes that – are cooked? Whatever is cooked is a dish. It denotes whatever is in a fit condition.
So saying, Mother was staring at the front door.
R: Why, dear, are you staring at the gate, when I had asked you to serve?
M: I am not looking at the gate, I am looking at the thatched sheds.
R: (Smiling) Come, come, child, serve the dishes as I direct.
So saying, Rajamma directed Mother to serve particular items on the particular corners of the leaf plate pointing to the eight corners of the Earth, with the rice-heap in the center sprinkled with ghee. Mother did accordingly.
R: Did you sanctify it?
M: Where should I sprinkle it (the tulasi water)?
R: On the heap of rice.
M: Out of ignorace I sprinkled it in all the eight directions.
R: Nothing could be better! Where is ignorance? It’s only the shyness of a Wise One.
M: My Lonelinss that none knows is the cause of it all.
R: All right! Recite the verse of ‘Meditation on the Teacher, once.
Mother did so.
R: Child, can you mix the meal in such a manner that all the side dishes get mixed with rice at the same moment?
M: Yes, it is possible, but to start with, one must hold it (the leaf-plate) at one corner!
R: You always search for a chance to rangle!
M: Where is the need to search for it? It is obvious!
R: (Pricked): Mix it as you please!
M: Should I serve as you say, and mix it as I please?
R: Mix it, without crossing my words any more!
Mother did accordingly. Rajamma proposed that they should partake of it together but Mother asked Rajamma to give her.
R: Yesterday, I put it in your mouth; today do the same to me.
M: But what is the significance of all this? Won’t you tell me?
R: I will, but first of all do as I say.
M: Without using our hands, let us prostrate on the ground and we shall eat together, closing our eyes, so that neither of us knows what the other eats.
R: Then, commence.
M: Don’t say ‘Commence’. We shall commence Together.
R: Come, lie down!
M: Let us bend together, swallow it and get up quietly.
R: (laughing loudly) Are you a master of two languages, rather, of all languages?
M: Why, would it not be enough to say Master of Language? Besides, why should it be said ‘Mas ter? there is a limitation in it! You can say “The thundering cloud.” “When I am that, then I am the sky (Space)
R: Does it (i. e. sky’) mean the void?
M: How can it be a void so long as you can cognise it? Void means being incognizible.
R: Is not Space formless?
M: But even the formless is with form!
R: But the scriptures describe the sky as void!
M: Akasa (Space) means Possibility (or the Mediuni of existence). Is it not so? What does Gayand mean?
R: I don’t know; your’s are the words that describe the Reality from its manifest aspect (i. e. Saakara).
M: Then, (can) you utter atleast two words about the unmanifest aspect of Reality (Nirguna)?
R: What is there to speak about the Unmanifest?
M: Then there are two features (of the Reality); the definability and undifinability the quality of being described and the quality of being above all description but even that is aquality!
R: Lord! I don’t know. You tell me how you can describe it (Space) as Possibility (Avakasa).
M: As the Earth is the Basis, it has made it possible (for us) to recognise Space as Space.” I know only this much about Space. You tell me what ‘Gagana’ means.
R: I can’t tell you now, but any how, it is said to mean the Unreachable’. There is an expression Neela Pathaakaaya namaha’ in the Lalitha sahasra Nama Stotra. Even in my dream earlier, I saw you reciting that does that expression mean? prayer. What
M: What do I know? ‘Pathaaka’ generally means a flag. The expression describes the Goddess as one who has the Sky for Her flag.
R: A superb explanation it is! I asked many people about it but none had explained it in this way.
M: How many are the Sastras?
R: The lore of Acrhitecture, the lore of Medicine. the lore of Music, Mathematics, Vedanta ete
M: Why mention only five?
R: There are others like Dharma Sastra.
M: Why are not all these, branches of Dharma Sastra?
R: Why not? But our hands are getting dried up (i. e. it’s toc late), come, let us eat
Both of them prostrated on the floor, closed. their eyes and commenced eating. Suddenly the pet dog on the one hand and the cat on the other also attacked the leaf plate. Rajamma sensed all new tastes over her tongue as she ate. But the dog’s snout touched Rajamma’s mouth. She opened her eyes and found that the meal is consumed. The cat and the dog kept staring at her. She also saw the young one of a pig, though it was not really there.
R: Mother, is this the Perfection (or Complete ness’) you spoke of?
M: Yes, it’s the End.
R: What shall I do with the leaf-plate?
M: I will eat it.
R: How can you eat a leaf-plate?
M: As I have been eating only leaves all along, except on this day, there is no difficulty.
So saying, Mother started eating the leaf plate.
R: Even if you eat the plaintain leaf you cannot eat the stalk in the middle of it.
M: Whenever I see a plantain leaf, I think of my back (which it resembles).
R: Why only your back? The backs of all are similar.
M: I never think of other’s backs. As my back never comes before me, I guess that my back looks like the leaf.
R: Stop eating it and let me compare by placing it on your back!
On doing so, Rajamma found that the leaf was exactly of the same shape and size as Mother’s back. The central stalk resembled the depression of her back. Then she exclaimed
“You are the speaker of Truth; Dharma is your form; you are the guide on the Way: your life is ideal. Whoever you be, your mission remains inscrutable.”
Rajamma folded the leaf-plate and kept it with her. It was half past three in the after noon. Mother fetched a broomstick and water and started cleaning the place.
R: No, mother, I will clean the place.
M: Won’t you teach me how to wash away all dirt?
R: Can’t you wash away this dirt? You do it every day at your home!
M: The ability to do does not come merely by daily repitition.
R: May be! Does the broomstick teach us wisdom?
M: It does teach me through you.
R: Yesterday you mentioned the cutting knife.Today you are speaking of the broomstick. You said that the former cuts (ie. analyses) every thing. You are saying that the latter removes the dirt (of ignorance). Are there any more that can be mentioned like that? After all, the Vedas were born from your lips!
M: Yes. Having been born from my mouth, they fell in your’s without my knowledge. So I came to you to hear the same.
R: Did you come to hear or to know?
M: Veda is nothing but sabda (sound or vibration). When that which ought to be heard is heard. what more is there to be known?
R: There is no more need to study Sankhya Yoga if one listens to you. One can attain Amanaska by talking with you. Leaving all this aside, Mother, won’t you tell me the story of your life?
M: A priceless story! But there is limitation even to that story.
R: Is it unfathomable? If not today atleast some time in future, your birth, your divine qualities, how they came to be known, how various people had recognised you, the experiences of your early years, nay your greatness-tell me about all these aspects. You must tell me how you had swallowed even the first dose of castor oil. I long to hear about your marriage also. I think your wedding would mark the glory of Creation.
M: No, dear, the world is itself my bridal. My marri age did not become the glory of the world.
R:There is one wish more. I shall mention several mantras to you! You propagate them all over the world. There is yet another wish but I shall not say it now but what do you say about the mantras?
M: So far, I myself did not understand what a mantra is; how can I propagate it?
R: You are the mantra yourself! Where is the question of your understanding it?
M: Then where is the question of my propagating it?
B: I will give the mantras in writing; you just communicate to people what I give you- I mean, to those who ask you for the same and according to their deservedness. M: I don’t have the scales needed to measure their deservedness!
R: Whether you have it or not, I enjoin it on you and it is obligatory; you can’t avoid it.
M: If that is inevitable, then it will happen (byitself).
R: If it is not (destined) to happen, can it be avoided? M: Both the senses are implied in my statement.
Rajamma held the hands of Mother entreat ingly and pleaded, “Mother, you can’t avoid this. It is not a command though, it’s only a wish.”
M: Can I fulfil All the wishes? I can neither wish (for myself) nor fulfil the wishes of others.
R: Won’t you hear my entreaties? M: I will hear, but I can not do accordingly.
Some minutes passed in silence. Then Rajamma wrote down seventy mantras on a piece of paper and handed them over to Mother and said. “You can prescribe them to people according to the deity they love.”
M: I do nothing about it; I can’t do it: I have no need to do so.
B: Then you pleas propagate them on my nam i.e. you can tell people that I wante you to teach them.
M: What have I to do with this business of sending them to you and you to them?
R: It’s only for that!
M: So, you mean that it can’t be avoided. Then, what proof is there that you wanted me to teach them those mantras?
R: Earlier, I wanted to express one more wish but I postponed doing so. Now I have to put it before you. Can you see that we are photographed (together)?
M: It is not I that wanted it. If you see to it, then I will simply sit (with you). Even for that I need his permission (i.e. the consent of Sri B. Nageswara Rao, her husband). I never got myself photographed. Someone took my picture when I was young. On the 15th of August 1947, happened to be photographed with him quite unexpectedly.
R: Anyway, try to secure his consent.
M: Whatever proofs you might produce and what ever promises you might extract of me, I think that nothing can happen before I am thirty three. Even at that time, it won’t be possible to do all the time as you say. You must specify a number and I shall initiate accordingly.
R: Atleast initiate one today, to start with.
M: I have been hearing strange complaints about these mantras. People have been connecting them with domestic problems. You must be responsible for all such things.
R: I will. Won’t you seek your husband’s consent? M: Yes, I will not only in connection with the photo but also concerning the mantras.
R: You can do so.
Mother did get the permission of Sri B. Nageswara Rao. Accordingly, they were photographed together. Mother, as soon as she attained the age of thirty three, initiated as many people as she had promised Rajamma with the Mantras. Now she no longer initiates anyone. Thus ended the historic meeting in the Teacher becoming the pupil and the pupil, the Teacher. Mother’s words had indicated all through that he came to awaken and not to be awakened. In the course of this long conversation, several basic concepts had been well define! by Mother’s words, well illustrated by her exemple. Both were amply supple mented by the seemingly accidentul coincidence of external cumstances. The preordination of these situations by Mohter’s will in it’s turn borne out by her words both before and after the incident. This is cough to make us realise that there can be no letter living subol than Mother of all higher truths and of the Truth.
(Concluded)