“My life is unbounded and my history loud.”
– MOTHER
THE lives of those who have attained Self Realisation are not bound by the two extremes of life’s journey namely birth and death. They are not their physient bodies in the sense in which we are. Their physical birth is not the beginning of their existence nor is physical denth their end. Thus Lord Krishna declared that he gave his teachings to Manu and others, to the utter bewilderment of Arjuna.
Thus did Christ declare “I was before Abraham”. So did Ramana Maharshi. Sai Baba and others declare. For Christ was not merely the Jesus of Nazareth nor was Lord Krishna merely the son of Vasudeva: Ramana Maharshi was not merely Venkat Raman. Mother is not simply Anasuya Devi. “I and my Father are one” declared Christ, “I am the truth, I am the way and I am the life. Mother said “I am that I am”. “I am the Mother”; “Mother means that which has no Beginning and no End; that which is the Beginning and the End.” “Reality itself is my state.”
Lord Krishna speaks of the Atman as being eternal, without either birth or death: but in a different context tells Arjuna that both of them had existed together in innumerable births which the latter does not remember. It may seem paradoxical yet Mother revealed the underlying truth when she said that for one who knows them completely, Past, Present and Future do not exist as three but exist as one. Time is three fold only to the one that Flows not know and such am cannot obviously know either the Past or the Future completely. Even when some people told her that they can read the past lives of others, Mother put a question as to where and how ic. in which form does the ego exist during the interval between death and the next birth. None could answer her satisfactorily, for if anyone could, then there can be no death for such a one and hence no birth. Such are the Self realised One-, That’s wiry Mother said “Forgetfulness is itself death” be it the forgetfulness of one’s identity with the Reality or the forgetf Juess of one’s (nevims) existence for an interval called death. She once said I have no forgetfulness at all.” That surely meal that she has no death as common mortals have it. Thus her life is not bound by the two incidents of birth and den h whereas her wrion 1graphy is bound to begin with the one an and with the other. She told two visitors that she had seen them as such and such places during 1914 and 1918 respectively. But Mother was born in 1923 only!
The story of her life is bound to be confined geographically to the place of her birth and the various places with which the events of her life were connected. But in spirit she is Omnipresent. Evidence abounds of her conversing with distant ones on different subjects be it in English or French, and of her awareness of what is happening at various distant places, of Moher prev’ding food for those who are dwelling in remote forests meditating on her. Thns while the story of her life is bound linguistically and geographi cally to a certain part of this state, Mother herself is unbound, unbarred rather, by difference of languages and distances of space and time. Similarly while her biography marks her identity in her name, caste and sex, she is unbound by them. While her biography is distinguished from that of any common mortal by goodness and virtue, Mother herself is not bound by them when she rece ved and helped her children. When there is no discrimination between qualities of visitors to ine, where is the distinction of Caste?” asked Mother. If I were to speak in terms of deservodness, there will not be one among you who deserves to come one step this side of the seventh mile”-she declared. “In the eyes of the Mother, the child is never at fault. It is inspite of the faults and perhaps because of them that she loves him and corrects him.”
“How great is thy endurance when some one exclaimed, she replied “the question of endurance arises only when there is suffering or pain.” “Once I had a doubt” said Mother on another occasion, “whether it is true that a man is troubled by others or whether he troubles himself. Who can trouble him who is not troubled by it and who takes it with joy?” she asked. Thus her life, unlike her biography, is unbound by the dualities of right and wrong, pleasure and pain etc..
These words of Dr. B. L. Atreya in his analysis of “Brihat Yoga Vasishta” aptly pin point the idea underlying this statement of Mother. “It is possible that a star. whose light is reaching us now and so giving us the impression of its present existence may have long ago been effaced out of its existence, if it was distant enough. So is the case with the individuality of a Jivan Mukta, a sage who actually does not feel to be an individual in the world of Spirit and Thought but who appears to be living, nay actually lives in the physical world, as an effect, as a passing shadow, of his previous individuality. His life is a reality to others but an appearance in his mind and unreal for his self in which he now has his conscious being.” This passage is very apt to this context because the sanskrit word “Abaddha” which Mother had used in her saying has the meaning “untrue besides the sense of “unbound.”