I WAS pleasantly surprised to hear the news that Mother took sister V. for wife. I would give a whole world for the experi ence of witnessing this eternal marriage of Mother. And sure, it would mean a lot of fun to see the sister being led in her bridal apparel to the wedding dias to marry the one she has secretly loved. Should I have failed to notice either, the regal mien of the bride groom, when ‘She’ looked askance caressingly at her bride soon after the Panigrahana? Oh yes, it is lots of fun, I mused.
“Fun is not the only thing involved; it is Pun too. In every thing she says or does, there is pun, irony”, it flashed. Mother revels in casting a quizzical eye on her own handiwork.
I was told that once Mother was found sitting on a mortar and a brother referred to her indirectly as Aadaraandlu which in Telugu means “Women’.
Prompt came Mother’s rejoinder: “I am not one of yonder place. I belong to this place,” She punned on the other meaning of his word which also meant these which are of another place’; because women left for their father-in-law’s place very young, they came to be called ‘those of another place.’ Ofcourse, one could not expect Mother to identify herself
with her body, much less with her sex.
I am reminded of a lovely episode in Mira’s life. The great Vaishnava saint Roop Goswami was then in Brindavan. He was disseminating the Lord’s name from there, and by virtue of his asso ciation with Lord Chaitanya, was much sought after. Mira Bai wanted to have his Daishan and respectfully sought his permission for an interview.
‘I won’t interview women’, Roop Goswami replied to the messenger.
Mira was not sorry but she sent back the messenger to Roop Goswami with the message: “Mira does not rocognise more than one Purusha (Man i… Lor! Krishna) in Brindavan.”
The reference was evident and Roop saw the sense in Mira’s strange message. Now it was his turn to request for an interview with her and the two divine inebriates,-the handmaids of Puru shottama,met to sing Hari’s name in full-throated ease.
About 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ replied to the query of the Sadducees: “The children of this world marry and are given in marriage. But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage. They are like angels in heaven”.
Indeed those who marry like angels-resurrected from the bestial appetites of the spiritually dead and ascended to the celestial estate of true being-enjoy angelic bliss. How remote is angelic bliss from brutal exhilaration born of confounded nerves!
“An ill-attuned ear cails discord harmony, not appreciating concord. So physical sense, not discerning the true happiness of being, places it on a false basis. Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind and happiness would be more secure in our keeping, if sough in soul”. Mrs. M. B. Eddy
Even the love life implicit in marriages is a distorted reflec tion of the eternal love-plays of the Cosmic Beloved. When the many craved for the One, the One became the many that came to Nidhuvan. And they danced and danced and danced to the tunes of eternal symphony. To the uninitiated, Rasa is a matter of the nerves, the erotic flirtations of some erratic Vraja wenches. The drab sounds of the Dholak have rendered their ears deaf to the cosmic music of the Ageless. The saara of the Rasa is the undulation of Rasa. Peace Par excellence,
Mortal love is either requited or unrequited, which means it knows both fruition and frustration. But there is no unrequited spiritual love. Spiritul love is its own reward. It requires no rituals, no formalities.
‘But, why this marriage of Mother?’ we enquire.
Sister V’s mortal mind prayed for a public recognition of the secret love and we have this marriage. As nuns are the dedicated wives of Christ Jesus whom they have not known, sister V. will be wife of Mother. It is a great condescension on the part of Mother. The Father who sees in secret rewards thee openly’. -The Bible.
In a casual chat at Jillellamudi, a few months before the event, a brother remarked that whoever married sister V. was the luckiest in the world. Little did we imagine at the time that the ‘luckiest bridegroom’ was at a mere stone’s throw from where we sat.
Inscrutable are the ways of the Spirit..
***
When Earth’s first Clay They did the Last Man’s knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow’d the Seed:
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
– Omar Khayyam