ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
PART 1
CHAPTER 1
MAI from MATAJI
Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai
The Founder of Mai-ism and President of Mother's Lodge ( Mai Mandal ), MAI SWARUP MAI MARKAND ( Rao Saheb M.R. Dholkia, L.C.F. ) began his devotion of Hindu Mother since his tender age of twelve. He began his sadhana साधना from the very first rung of the ladder, with shouting in solitude, “Mother. Tell me, dost Thou exist or not? “at that young age in Petlad, his native place in Gujerat, near Cambay.
He had proof of Mother's existence by being saved from the attack of two robbers on his way home from that place of solitude to that of his home, one night, through the intervention of a tall, fearful woman. She walked over between the boy and the two robbers for a few furlongs till the boy was safe near the outskirts of his village. Most wonderfully, the same terrible black woman disappeared in the air immediately after the boy's safety.
The incident did not go beyond creating a suspicion and a wonder, but at least the idea of the possibility of the existence of God, deities, angels, spirits, other worlds etc., took its roots. It took three years of strong devotion of Jagadamba जगदम्बा Kali काली and Chamuda चामुण्डा one after another to make the boy ripened enough to have a doubtful belief about the existence through the second incident mentioned below.
The boy in a busy crowd in Ahmadabad अहमदाबाद was shoutingly warned by a dog-cart driving European pair, to set aside. The boy failing, the European took of his long whip determined to beat the boy out. The merciless man however lost the grip of the whip, the whip encircled the foot of the horse and the dog-cart fell to the ground. The boy terribly afraid, ran away from the crowd and tremblingly concealed himself in Bhadra Kali भद्रकाली temple corner, the nearest safe place.
With his whole frame shattered, the boy had the very night, a dream in which the whole scene of accident repeated itself and ended with the daily repeated question, " Mother, does Thou exist or not?" The Mother (The Bhadra Kali Image), in the dream, answered," I DO NOT EXIST ". The boy asked," Who is then speaking? “Mother then smilingly asked," Whom then are you asking this question tiring me and yourself for the last over the three years. ? "
The boy got confidence about the existence of God at the age of 15. He began to believe it was the intervention of Kali that had saved him from robbers. The boy was busy trying to secure God's grace and recognition as devotee through devotion to any of the usually worshipped Hindu deities, viz., Rama, Shiva, Krishna and others. He was however, as it were, passed on by one deity to another without retention till; he concluded MATAJI alone would accept him.
The conception of Hindu Devi or Mataji is that of sternness, terror and destructivity though united with benignity and mercifulness and everything-asked-givingness and all-desire-fulfillingness. Mataji is restricted to Hindus alone and She is personification of Power. Mai or Maijee is Universal and a Personification of Mother, God himself as Mother and not God's Power. Mataji is mostly a Goddess of fear and power, where as Maiji is the Goddess of parental love and permanent welfare. Except the common element of the feminine-sex, the conceptions of Mataji and Maiji are entirely different and dissimilar, if not contradictory.
The mention of this distinction becomes indispensable here as otherwise it would not be realised how much terror-stricken the boy was at the idea that the none of the Sattvik deities as Shiva, Rama or Krishna had accepted him and that on the other hand he was so much favoured and cared for by Matajee, the most prominent feature of whole traditional mythology was the destruction of demons and terrible fighting in the battle-fields. The boy had none of the requirements of a fearful sadhana.
The boy, then eighteen, was shuddering at the idea of being a devotee of a terrible deity. Said he," Let me cast the gambler's throw .I will perform hundred repetitions of Saptashati. If Mataji accepts me as Her son with no displeasure, no freaks, no terrible wrathfulness and no vengeance for consciously or unconsciously done offences, I become Hers. Otherwise, I live my life as an atheist or an agnostic, with all goodness, morality, broad-mindedness, fellow-feeling etc. "
At eighteen he began the experiment. On thirty repetitions, he had a telegram, at Poona (Pune), where he was studying in the Engineering College, from his maternal uncle who was the Revenue Collector of the Baroda State of Mehesena मेहेसाणा near Ahmedabad. It was about his mother's illness and asking him to start immediately. On the way railway station, where his uncle had come to receive him, the former received the telegram from the Baroda Government to immediately proceed to Bahucharaji Mataji बहुचराजी माताजी ( the second most popular Goddess worshipped in Gujerat) as the Revenue Collector of the district and to do certain arrangements. The young lad was taken directly to the place, as his mother become fairly all right, as soon as he has started from Poona (Pune) by Mother's Grace. The illness was a pretext utilised by Mother to force him to come down as he had determined not to leave Poona (Pune), although all students had left in their vacation. He had refused going home, as he was determined to finish the experiment at the same place, without any break or interruption. There, in the temple, the boy was given an assurance by Matajee in a dream that She would be to him purely and unadulteratedly a loving and living mother. He returned to Poona full of hair-erect bristling joys.
Since that day, supernatural and occult powers of prediction and blessing which were inherent in him from the very childhood became more effective, intense and acute. He could bring two persons at daggers drawn going to a criminal court for cross suits to be friends in a two hours talk. Once he wanted 63 rupees (his Money Order, not arriving at proper time from parents before the last date of college fee payments). He prayed at 9 p.m. and at 11 p.m. he had a heap of about Rs. 800 because the Bengali and Gujarati quarters took a fright at 10 p.m. (there were some robbers preparing to loot the quarters from behind, seen gathered on desolate railway lines). Though a big cipher in drawing ( the most essential subject in Engineering ), his drawing to be finally examined with marks-giving at the annual University examination would be prepared by the best students with the full permission and cognition of the very supervisors and even the principal. Once Mataji dictated to him the whole of the chemistry paper the previous night.
He was voracious reader but he was more of a mathematician, a poet, a thinker, a philosopher and a songster than an engineer by his very birth. What did he care after he had Mother's protection? His repeated failures in spite of his hardest work trained him to realise nothingness of himself and life and left no drop of cheerfulness about life with all its varied pleasures. He ceased to be a responsible actor of the world and became a superficial spectator of his own life, allowing it to be drifted as Mother desired according to his past Karmas, with nothing as the goal of life, at such a tender age , - usually full of follies and passions, spirits and storms.
At twenty-two, he had the most calamitous, and yet the final hardest hammer under which he would have succumbed, but for Mother's Grace. He happened to read Yoga-Vasistha योग वसिष्ठ and Vedantism वेदान्त, the terrible teaching of "AHAM BRAHMA ASMI ' अहं ब्रह्मास्मी and his head turned. His intellect got clouded with controversy of the new teaching. He thought he was all along under a delusion and pitiable victim of a huge cheat by Mataji, the Maya deity. He threw away his deity picture, scriptural Saptshati सप्तशती , wooden seat, worshipping materials and vessels in the river Mula-Mutha Sangam मुळामुठा संगम behind his living place. He changed his course from devotion to Divine Knowledge. He began repeating "AHAM BRAHMA ASMI" day and night and interviewed so many religious teachers on the subject.
Some decades ago divine Knowledge and Devotion were at daggers drawn. It is now,things have now changed and religious teachers have accepted the policy of harmonising both. The Advaitists have seen that unless they equally appreciate and preach devotion, their popularity and maintenance of Ashrams would be an impossibility. That deprecating manner of saying," Devotion is only just a stepping stone, which has now disappeared, was it then at its shouting pitch. It is now only very recently that Sanyasees and Yogis and Karma Margis all have gradually pitched their tents in the open airy yellow lawn of devotion. That preaching of one-ness of Atma and Parmatma, that idea of inferiority of devotion and deities, that sophistry about the fruitlessness or unreality or the delusion of the Universe and all allied teachings, so very forceful then, were more than overpowering for the young boy of twenty-two who had seen nothing of the world in its true natural colours.
The young boy had never had to pass through a more terrible time. He experienced that, as a result of his faithless desertion of Mother, the whole world has changed to be worse for him. Even his best friends and relations disliked, displeased and deserted him; no miraculous powers, no happy meditations, no devotional effusions, no good-lucks. His morality, goodness, character, religiosity all stood before him threatening him with leaving him a as a corpse. The contrast of his faculties before and after, all led him to the highest desperation. One day, in Petlad, he tore of his garments and sacred thread, threw of his shirt and dhoti and cap in the street and ran away from the house as one determined to mend or end his life, to be Sanyasin or or to commit suicide. What might have been the climax of his sorrow, disappointment and disgust of life and world, at twenty-two, can be better imagined than described. He was however caught by his most revered father who ran after him with all the force he can command in the street, weeping and shouting out on losing his son and by his mother, weeping and madly running after his father. He was brought home and confined in a room for a week and greatly smoothened and solaced by his parents. After a promise not to be a Sanyasin, he was permitted to return to Poona for studies. His mother with tears in her eyes said," You have never been telling a lie. You never break your promise. If you are determined to be a Sanyasin, first stab me and then go. If you wish I may live, promise me, you will never leave home." This promise did not leave him undisturbed whenever he got the idea of taking Sanyasa.
One idea alone, about his greatest ungratefulness to the Mother who had been protecting him all along, and without whose protection what the world would be to him, he had experienced and realised, that one mania seized him. This one idea acted like the most violent attack of an unbearable shock. He decided to drown in the very same river unless Mother reaccepted him. In the midst of the excruciating pains he got an imaginary idea like lightening in the darkest cloudy night. "Will not Mother save me? Will She not tell me She has re-accepted me?" All this was a matter of few hours, before determination and preparation for action. He went to commit suicide in the river. He ran in towards the river water depth with a speed which had never before used. Just then, he was caught in the sweetest trans-heavenly Embrace of Mother - The Visible, The infatuatingly Beautiful Mother. She admonished him strongly never to be so reckless and senseless in future and assured him he was never disowned by Her, although his head had turned. Not only that, but She told him, She was carrying him through certain experiences which were indispensable. Mother knew his fickle mindedness and did the preventive needful. Retracing to his room, he expressed to himself, though most stealthily, wishing none to know it, not even his own mind to hear him, his inmost suspicion which proved his greatest ungratefulness even after Mother had been merciful enough by saving him from committing suicide. He asked himself," What did I see? What did I hear? Is this not all a mental derangement? Is this all not a false vision because of a mental despair?" Mother had anticipated this and had kept the answer ready to convince him of Her Embrace and Her Word and Her Promise.
Most surprisingly, on opening the room he saw the very same deity picture, the very same scriptural book of Saptashati, the very same wooden-seat, the very same worshipping articles at the very same place as they were and where they were before, the very same things which he had thrown away in the river with contempt about six weeks before.
From this moments onwards, he linked himself with and riveted himself to Mother. His conception then was a Hinduistic one, viz., that of power, although with the additional personally secured concessional advantage of Mother's protection to him as Her son. That was however just as a lioness has her love to her cub though not with a devouring ferocity. "Mother" was however to him an honorific name for a feminine sex deity with no conception of a mother-and-child relationship for one and all.
The period from this event in 1907 up to 1932 was that of a common man's living with a gradual progressive development in religiosity. Hindu Mataji (Power) was gradually transforming Herself with him to be the Universal Mother Mai. Universalization of one's ideal is not merely a matter of tongue-twist. Universality means a complete absence of the idea of one man being different from another exactly similar man on the mere ground of such two man's belonging to two different religions. Universality to be effective must be the supreme quality of one's whole vision and entire intellectual outlook with a belief and a conviction about its highest value. Universality should not be outcome of a policy, a temporary acceptance, or a delusion creativeness, for some specific object in a view. It should be an impossibility to assume a different colour after some attainment or after a lapse of some long time.
The difference, the superiority and inferiority complexes, prejudices and prepossessions, likes and dislikes, as a result of different persons following different religions, require be uprooting, wiping out and forgetting as if they were never in existence. The Founder brought about a reconciliation between Hindus and Muslims over a mosque question at Nasik in a few hours, which was a standing cause of unrest for 12 to 15 years. That was possible only because the Founder was Universal-minded, in every moment of his living, after 1932 and because he was a Mai-ist, the Founder and follower of a religion which has Universal-mindedness as its main-most commandment.
The subtle difference is to be noted here. It is not that some few Hindus or Muslims are not there that are universal-minded, but the presumption holding sway in the minds of both the communities in terms of millions of hearts , is that Hindu is a Hindu and a Muslim is a Muslim, during butchering riots. When the knife is raised is to be plunged, it is not possible for one to know or to inform that he is not an enemy, at the moment of life and death. Mai-ism emphasises the need of a solid working through organisations during peace periods.
There the whole difference comes in. To be the known follower of a religion ( or even a society ) which makes no distinction of that nature, on the one hand, and on the other, to be an exception to the usual beliefs about a religion or a society by the co-religionists or members are poles asunder. That you are above such animosities must have been a proved fact known to the world at large, much before an incident.
That supreme stage of Universal outlook, once attained, along with other sterling virtues, carries with it, its own wonderful silent supernatural power over the hearts of average men. The man appealing to brotherhood must have actually lived in that spirit and with that belief as the maxim of his life. Reconciliation between two antagonistic forces become possible only when a much superior force makes each of them to be reminded of its comparative nothingness.
The spiritual force of a Religious Universal-minded man is of a much stronger powerful-ness than that of the Life force or the Will-force or Soul-force. It derives its strength from the divinity itself.
During the college sub-period (from 1908 to 1912 ) there were many convincing proofs of Mataji's Grace.
During his second-year examination, one day he was in devotional mood, which made him entirely uncomposed to be able to attend the examination hall, in Bombay [Mumbai] at the appointed hour. When he could compose himself in his home, the examination hour had passed. He washed his face dressed himself in his home and took a tram. In hot haste, his T-square which was shoved in the drawing board the wrong way fell off on the ground. Some Seth picked it up and ran in a victoria after the tram and caught it at the next halt. The boy was overwhelmed with gratefulness. The Seth said," Mataji, bless me with a son ". Said the Founder," Mother Grace shower Welfare ". The devotee ran to the hall and found that he was 40 minutes late. Soon after him came the Registrar with the question paper packets. He was admitted to the hall. The printing machinery unprecedentedly had gone wrong to give the boy sufficient time to recover his normal plane.
The second instance was in respect of the special train carrying the students on a geographical tour in the final year. The students had encamped in Agra and were awaiting the arrival of a special train expected to arrive within an hour or so. The boy got flying news that Mathura was near. Said he," I must go for Darshan of my beloved Lord Krishna." The train time that day to Mathura had passed away. Like a mad man he said," I will go to the station."Two friends accompanied him. First station, the station staff laughed at their ignorance of the scheduled timings. Second station people called them mad. Third station , the engine was lying "sick". On purchase of tickets and hurried sitting in a coal wagon, the engine came to order and whistled. The despondency that has arisen on the booking-clerk advising not to purchase tickets as the engine had gone useless turned to cheerfulness with joyful hurrah. However the cause of standing suspense and anxiety did not altogether cease. They would be detected on the arrival of a special train as absconders and be even punished. They had not enough money to return Bombay [Mumbai] from Agra with fresh tickets. From 4 P.M. to 9 P.M. of the next day, the special train could not be ready in spite of the repeated telegrams by the influential professor-in-charge of the tourists, till they returned. The in-charge was hot with the boy for having bolted away but his popularity came to his aid.
His reputation as a devotee of Mataji had become widespread and established. In the direction of Divine Knowledge, he took a very active part in all religious matters. He was in close touch with Theosophy both in Ahmadabad and Poona and wrote several thought-provoking and instructive articles in "Meher Message मेहेर मेसेज " such as " Ignorant Adverse Criticism", " Misfortunes of the modern mumukshus मुमुक्षु ", " Facts for the fatigued ", "Divine Love", "Happiness " etc. and " God and God attainment Remedies " in "Kalyan" कल्याण of Gorakhpur गोरखपुर and "Dharma Darshan" धर्मदर्शन in Sharada Peetha शारदा पीठ etc.
He had several occasions to have a personal eye-to-eye vision of the Divine Mother, in waking state, oftentimes in the most painful mood and moments. One of them may be narrated as a specimen.
His services as a municipal engineer in Surat were to be discharged as a result of a new fad of Government to lend engineers along with the Municipal Commissioners. He resigned before a notice is served. He was anxious that he had an appointment somewhere, before his leaving; but nothing would come forth in reply to his applications. It was Navaratra 9th day. Brahmins were on the wooden seats for dinner after all the ceremony. He sent word to his wife and relations that he could not join the brahmins. "Serve them with all heart and liberality," He told Mother," What more do you want? Should I break my head at Thy feet? ". Just then the door was knocked. A telegram of appointment was there. The whole scene was changed. He ran up to weep out his gratitude to Mother. And what did he see and hear? "Will you not at least now come with me down for the dinner?" The form and the sound both disappeared in less than a second; leaving him again lost in labyrinth, Divine meditation and ecstasy.
The year 1932 was a turning point in his religious life. The period 1912 to 1932 was that of preparation with lots of troubles and sufferings to be fitted up religiously and spiritually for the work he was to be charged with. His belief till then consisted of increasing proportions of "Mother-element" in the Power Mother-basic mixture from time to time. It was reaching the culmination point of the full Mother-hood of God to which Universality became automatically a corollary. Said he to himself," If your God is Father or Mother of the whole Universe and if whosoever resides and is worshipped in Hindu temples is not a mere Hindu God , but a Universal God of one and all, there can be absolutely no justification for " entry-refusal " to any one ( Harijans or Mohammedans etc.) What Hindus alone can worship can only be a Hindu God and not a Universal God.
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER II
MAI INSTALLATION
JAY MAI JAY MAI JAY MAI
The most important incident wherefrom the history of Mai movement starts, took place in the latter months of 1931 ( September and October ) in Poona (India).
The wife of Founder's college friend and boss (Late Revered Sister Taraben Soparkar) was on death-bed suffering from Septicemia. The friend got the Founder (Markand Dholkia) transferred from Ahmedabad to Poona to help in the calamity. The wife was lying upstairs. She said to her husband, I am hearing the Mantra repetitions from some Matajee's devotee. I am on death-bed so please find him out round about our bungalow streets and let me have his Darshan". The friend took the Founder and went round in search and assured her that there was none :"Not only I but even 'Dholkia Kaka' accompanied me for the search". She exclaimed,"What, has he come? It must be than he. Please call him up". She repeated the same shloka of Sapta Shati fourth Adhyaya which the Founder was then repeating mentally unheard by anyone. This shloka was repeated by her to assure the Founder that he was a recognised devotee and that she was worthy recipient of his Darshan and blessings.
A drawing professor was coaching the friend's daughter. He inquired of the future of the lady from a Pandharpur saint. The saint foretold, that her days were finished but added, "There is however a saint in his house, out of courtesy to whom She is not being taken away. The day he leaves the bungalow. she would expire." The friend enlightened by the first experience suspected that the saint in his bungalow was none other than the Founder and as he was the head of the department, kept him all hours confined to his bungalow by way of precaution. asking him to do his official work at that place.
On 3-October-1931, the case was entirely serious. Three eminent doctors declared she would die within an hour or so. The worst news was broken by the husband to his friend who tried to strengthen his courage to meet the calamity. The husband vociferated, "What a coward talk? I am sure, if you heartily pray, she will at least live longer and give me sufficient time to prepare for the worst." The Founder had a very little of confidence in the efficacy of his prayers for the most impossible change, but he had to follow him upstairs. He prayed with his whole heart and devotion standing near the pillow of the lady in midst of nearly twenty weeping relatives. The pulse, speech and vision had left the body. On prayer, the Founder's tears fell in her mouth, the pulse speedily went up, vision and speech returned and the eyes opened. Her word were,"How can I like to leave this world leaving behind me the un-cared-for children ? I see Mataji standing before me. She says if you fast for a day she will give me a week's extension. Will you not promise doing that for me?" The promise was given hand in hand and the improvement began with most unimaginable speed. Just half and hour after, she asked for milk, fruit-juice etc. It was an unprecedented family joy.
Some believed, and some did not, in God's hand in all these. But almost everyone including husband thought she was saved permanently. On the 7th day, the temperature however rose up from the morning. The husband was too shrewd to remain any longer under delusion. The whole story looked true. She was to go that day. He had a hysteric fit from he was made to recover to composure after consolation by his friend . At 3 p.m. , there was a phone from the Secretariat asking the husband to send certain confidential office files under lock and key. He could not possibly leave her. The Founder was given keys and the motor driver was ordered to drive fast and the Founder was given strict orders not to waste a single minute in the office. On reaching office, the head clerk informed him that the lady expired as soon as he has placed his feet outside the bungalow.
Here was a continued episode which baffled all human solutions. She was a great devotee of Matajee. She actually heard the Mantra which the Founder was simply mentally chanting. The prophecy of the Pandharpur saint and its fulfilment were wonders. She saw Mother and heard Her words. A fast of a particular devotee earned the Mother's Grace of the boon of a week's life extension.All these happenings began revolving in Founder's mind, finally resulting an overpowering sense of his ingratitude to Mother.
Said he,"Should I be simply living pleasure-dipped and fully ungrateful to my Mother? She has so often protected me all along and shown Herself to me and I have not breathed a single syllable to the world about Her mercifulness and Her dying for Her devotees.This one idea drove off all other ideas, even those required to sustain himself in daily routine. He became semi-lunatic, weeping day and night and beating his forehead, sometimes against walls rolling on ground and saying only one thing, I am a wretch, most ungrateful creature, Even such a simple thing glorification of Thyself, I have not done."
He had to go on a long leave.Doctors consulted diagnosed that he had no disease whatever. He had divine madness.The best medicine was constant talk about Mother and Mother's occupation within his hearing and seeing. This was a furnace period, during which there was a wholesale drastic change, in the Founder's religious outlook. All the pride of Hindu-ism, Vedas, Brahmins (he himself being a Nagar the highest Brahmin in Gujerat) and the belittling of other religions evaporated. Strangely and wonderfully. Mother finally commanded him to install Her as Mai The Universal Divine Mother.
"God as Mother, Mother of all, propitiable with universal love, service, devotion and unconditional cheerful self-surrender". These six words and expressions he would often hear in the air and would read written on walls and on the ceiling between joist-gaps and on closed doors and windows. He pleaded his full unworthiness to such an innovation. The more he tried to evade, the more did Mother sit on his heart and head till the sweet talk became artificially embittered and wrathful. "What do you prefer? Installing me as Mai with the dictated six tenets or life-long present semi-lunacy?
The Founder finally gave the promise to Mother and so to say escaped, on giving a promise, in order to avert semi-lunacy.His recovery was marvellously quick after promise and he returned to Poona (Pune) and rejoined his service. He had a world of reminders from Mother almost every week. But he was too conscious of the crushing responsibility, to so easily yield. He went on procrastinating.
Two persons one in Calcutta and the other in Mysore (Shimoga) were given command in dreams to go over to the city of Poona (Pune) and deliver Her Message of Installing Mother.
The Calcutta message-bearer came over to Poona (Pune). Finding no place in any other hotel, he had come over to the hotel where Founder resided. With great despondency as how to find the man in such a large unknown city, he fell into sleep at 10 p.m. He had a dream; "Don't be afraid and losing heart. I have brought you to the man. Just at twelve midnight, you see things through the slit of common door between your room and the front room. You have to hand over the message to the man there in the morning. Make a bold statement". The man saw the Founder at the said hour in communion, full of solicitations to Mother," To find some other man to install etc." In the morning he delivered the message and left.
The Mysore devotee who carried the message happened to come to the hotel as a casual visitor. The Founder by chance went to the dining floor at the time the man was dining. As soon as that man saw the Founder returning to his place, he suddenly left his half-meal and ran after the Founder. Most abruptly he talked ,"Are you a devotee of Devi ?" Founder also made no delay: "Yes, not only a devotee but a passionate, most uneasy devotee". Still most abruptly the man said," I come from Mysore. I have a message to hand over to you from Mother." The Founder got dumb-founded. "Yes please come to my room. The man followed: the message was communicated. Said the man," I have come so far. Would you not favour me with the spark of Love for Mother? I have enough of divine knowledge for my purpose (this was only his modesty). Said the Founder," Are you prepared? Would you sit with me on the bench of the Sheikh Sulla bridge during night hours ?" He agreed.
The Founder was sitting with him from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. on wooden bench. The man went to his place. He was at the highest pitch of desire that he may have a vision of Mother at least in a dream. He had a dream in the sleeping. Mother appeared and said ,"You are now longing for my Darshan. Who was talking to you for hours on the bridge? That was myself. You have not only seen me but talked with me". The man narrated the event to the Founder at early dawn.
Two persons coming down for only the purpose of delivering the message was something too great to be taken lightly. That put the Founder to an indescribable shame about his obstinacy and suspiciousness. Said he with a sigh," I am surely a man without faith. I have a faith in reality what I have seen and heard, but I have no faith in Mother making me fully fitted for the uphill unique task". He was extremely nervous and terribly afraid of how people would consider his act and of their defaming him by attributing highest impudence, hypocrisy and blasphemy.
He decided to be tricky with Mother and to get to Her agree to let her fad go once for all, but he could not succeed. On the hand Mother directly repeated Her treat, "Tell me in one word once for all, what do you prefer - Installation or lunacy ?"
The Founder had no go and with a sorrowful laughter he set down to stipulate terms with Mother, as he had done before, when he had begun hundred repetitions of Saptashati. He made a Sankalpa ( a resolution ) pouring sacred water offering to the Mother, " If there is an entirely new building of which the first in-dweller is myself, if I enter it on a Friday, if by evening there is a dazzling light, if there is a basket of 'mithai' and fruits received that day,if three girls and two men knock my door at 9.30 p.m., if they press me to install Thee, if at 10 p.m., I find Mother's picture in any shop, if at 11 p.m., I find some shop open wherefrom I can purchase worshipping materials and lastly if at 11.30 p.m.. some 'Mali' (garland hawker) brings me a most beautiful garland befitting Thee and the occasion, then I shall not hesitate and I shall not fail to Install Thee and declare Thee and Thy Religion.
Each and every condition was so very wonderfully and admirably fulfilled. He was getting surer and surer as one condition after another came up attaining fulfilment and when finally a hawker shouted out "Har Har' (Garland, Garland), he burst into tears on hearing that shout. He began to beat his breast and forehead. "Mother, Thou hast finally caught me. Could you not find any other man, who is more worthy than myself? "The five persons consoled him with the sweetest words, "She would do Her own work. Who is more blessed than yourself? Why should you loose heart and courage? Where is the question of your worthiness or unworthiness, at all sirs, when She Herself has chosen you?"
Mother was installed at 12 midnight on 2-9-1932. Said he to all that had gathered, " From today, I am a Mai-ist, from today my religion is ' God as Mother, Mother of all, propitiable on living the life of universal love and service, with devotion and unconditional cheerful self surrender'. Krishna, Mohammad, Christ, Jarthost, Buddha and every Founder of any religion is my Mother's (Mai's) illustrious son. From now, Bible, or Koran is as venerable and worshippable to me as Geeta. A Mohammedan lady will find the same shelter in my home as a Hindu lady under communal riot (This actually happened).
I will continue to pray God as I have prayed till now, whether in a Hindu Mandir, or a Mohammedan Masjid or a Christian Church or a Zoroastrian Agiari or an Israelite Synagogue. No more religious differences; the devotion of Mother is necessarily the devotion of Mother's Children. I am a changed religious man from this moment." Said the Founder," I install Mai today. I declare Mai-ism today.Let it be to known to one and all of my friends. Let the world if so minded now commence the work of ridiculing, defaming, censuring, suppressing, harassing and crushing me and the Mai movement."
News spread around. The nearest people were Theosophists and Harijans. Some educated Harijans had the most reverential regard for the Founder, the man who was Love and Mercy himself with an innocent childlikeness and who was happily blessed with the most intense devotion. People began calling him "Second Ramakrishna", 'Mother's child', 'Mother', or 'Mataji'.
The Founder had a terrible exhaustion after the installation night which lasted for three days. On the third night he had a pleasant dream, in which he saw a vast open lawn in which there were innumerable ladies of all religions. He interpreted this to mean the Mother desired a congregation of ladies in strict purdah (with no gents and or boys) of all religions, in commemoration of Her installation.In spite of so many difficulties, a sisters' social of over 300 sisters of all religions presided by Mrs. Choudhary of Bengal on Dashera day (9-10-1932) became a fait accompli. By one and all that attended, it was called "Mother's Miracle".
The Founder attaches great religious importance to this novelistic idea of a congregation of all ladies without distinction of caste, creed and colour, in strict purdah without any gents or boys, meeting together in the spirit of religious sisters to have religious discourses and thought exchanges, prayers , worships, refreshments, prasads etc, on a Dashera day. The requirement of a purda has a deep significance to provide safety against any unusual custom or belief. If that provision is not there, Muslim sisters stand precluded; so also Hindu ladies of royal orthodoxies as also ladies whose husbands and relations are strictly against their womenfolk freely with men.
Soon after, the Founder (Saint Shri Mai Swarupa Mai Markand ) was deputed to go Belgaum, Dharwar etc., for official duties.In the very train, Mother was worshipped at Belgaum by a large number of ladies, with garlands, sweet offerings and Arati. “Prasad " was carried away by people right up to Madras ( Chennai ). The Founder was entirely joyful. One has never heard of an instance of a Divine worship on a railway station in the train by the varied (unknown-to-each-other) train travelers, including especially ladies.
At Belgaum the Founder was taken to a Ganpathi-devotee-Sanyasin whose predictions were reported to be wonderfully correct. The Founder had his turn and the Sanyasin told him, “ Believe my words if you start within one month from now, a religious institution ".
On return to Poona ( Pune ), he was pressed by all that had seen Mother's miracle of the sisters' social, to start an institution for universal prayers and lectures on different religions and spreading Mother's conception. In less than a month from the meeting with the Mahatma of Belgaum, a Mother's Lodge was started on 27-3-1933. Meetings were held every Sunday with printed handbills distributed and mention in the local papers. Lectures were mainly about Devotion, Love, Service and Surrender as emphasised in different religions. The Founder dealt with Harijans by various lectures and Mother's worship in the mission.
A few experiences may be narrated to show Mother does help Her devotees-in-distress most miraculously.
A Parsi Lady (Rev. Sister Mithibhai) who served as a chairwoman in sisters' social had one night a trouble. Her brother (Rev. Brother Jahangir) asked her for Rs. 500/ as he was in difficulty. It was Friday night. She said she would paid off his bills but would not give cash because he was sure to loose that in the race-course. The brother got wrathful and ran shouting she may read in the papers the next day the result of her refusal. The lady was terrified. How could she run after him ? In her despair she shouted for the Founder, " Oh my brother, Oh my Mother, who can save me ? Who would bring my brother back ?" She decided to go the Founder, when, in the bungalow itself, she saw Mother who told her , " My son is just now having a nap after a long exhaustion. Don't trouble him. I will bring your brother back in an hour and a half. " The brother who had gone to Bund Garden with a determination not to return home, returned. All of them motored to the Founder and joined in Friday prayers. They narrated experience to their friends and that added a lot of popularity of Mai-ism.
One of the Mother's devotee's ( Rev. Bro. L.S. Prasad ) brother (Rev. Brother Sankarlal) was in some great prosecution difficulty though he was innocent. He was praying as initiated. Once he was so much unnerved that he decided to run down to Poona (Pune) to be blessed. He had a dream in which there was a room in which the Founder (whom he had not seen) was sleeping and Mother was patrolling and guarding the Founder. He entered the room. She asked him, “why are you here ?" He said," I want the Founder as I am in great difficulty ". Said She," Don't disturb my son,. He is fast asleep after a bitter weeping for me. You want acquittal, is it not? Well, I promise you; you now walk off. Let him sleep."
The man wrote about the dream to the Founder and asked his meaning and whether he should come down to Poona for blessings . The Founder asked him details of the room, direction, things lying, the posture of the Founder etc. as he saw in the dream. Details came forth. The Founder had three pillows, he had a blanket which was brown with black squares. He was sleeping with Mai's picture by his side. These and other details equally tallied. The Founder said," You need not come down to Poona, but pray, pray and pray ". He was later acquitted.
There was plague in Poona. People left the city. The Founder lived on Toddiwala road. One day a lady came and told and told him that Mother had appeared in the dream and said ," Those who want to save their families should attend my Friday Prayers." The Founder told her," I have very small space here . Your own desire has materialized in the dream." With all reverence, she was a bit wrathful. She spoke words which showed she was severely distressed. “Do you think, Mai, that we are not fit and Mother will not talk to us in the dream and that you are alone have all the monopoly ? However small we may be for Her Grace, there is no question of worthiness; I tell you Mother is actually living in your house. If you like you may see test. She is going out at 5 a.m. and moves in the garden and returns within few minutes. "
The Founder gave the substance of this talk to his cook and his servant and asked them to keep watch and shout for him if they saw Mother. At about five next morning both of them heard a sound near the door as if someone was unloosening the chain and they saw the door opened and closed quite speedily and the chain swinging and hanging vertically. They ran out, looked all round but could see none. They reported to the Founder. The Founder used a lock, kept the key with him. The next night, the cook and the servant shouted. The lock was opened and there was the sound of the doors striking freely as if they were broken open most angrily. The Founder ran up, saw the doors wide open and the lock opened, hanging loose one side and the chain on the other. He ran in the garden and saw Her just before disappearing. He danced like a mad man with joy and composed a poem which is sometimes sung in Mother's Lodge meetings. " Bagan me fool chunan jaye meri Maiya : in the garden, flowers to pluck, goes my Mother." Orders were issued not to close the doors by night or to open them at 4 a.m.. The predicting woman obeyed. Friday prayers began in a spacious terrace and there was no case of a plague attack in the vast number of families that attended.
However the most wonderful and interesting experience of the Founder was this. One young man who had lost his equilibrium due to his wife's death was in the spiritual service of the Founder, after he was restored to normality. One night he made a very strange statement. He said," Mother just passed in front our door in a royal splendid car and She told me, You come over with your Kakaji (Founder) to the Globe Cinema Theater (in Poona-Pune). I am going there. Bring him without fail. He thinks a religious preacher loses all his austerity and Punya by seeing the Cinema. He needs a relief now. Don't fail." The Founder thought the young man's head had again turned. He thought all his labours of recovery on him were lost. He tried to make that man forget but the latter would not leave him.Both went to Globe Cinema. The picture was 'Maya Machendra". The other man had absolutely no peace of mind. He would go out of the theater and come in every five minutes till finally he came shouting : " Mother came in just now in the very same car. Few minutes later, the man shouted," See, See , See there, She is sitting just in that balcony all alone." The Founder was more than stupefied as he saw Mother there all alone in gem-becked easy chair. Both were steadily gazing at Her. After 4 to 5 minutes, they saw Mother getting up most hurriedly. Said the other man, "Kakaji, Mother is going away” and rushed out. The Founder also ran after him. They saw Mother getting into the car with a lightning speed and the car flew off.
There will be no end to narration of all the Founder's experiences.
To those that have some mystic knowledge of occult religious nature, it is known fact that visions and dreams are powerful avenues of divine communications. Deities and dead or distant Guru carry their work through dreams, regarding the interpretations of which the wisest are often at their wits' end.
Dreams themselves are often untrue, but sometime true, sometimes a picture of own desires, imaginations and ambitions, and sometimes actually by way of a command, message or guidance, or even initiation by the higher souls. There is no seal of certainty about its source, and every dream has to be dealt with most cautiously, neither with blind faith, nor with nothing-caring-indifference. The best thing is to consult and take decision from one in whom you believe and who is more advanced religious soul, higher than yourself.
In the case of the Founder ( Shri Markand Dholkia - the author of this book & the Founder of Universal Religion Mai-ism, popularly known as Mai Swarup Mai Markand or Maiji), dreams and visions have played an extremely important part, as would be seen from so many instances narrated already and to be narrated hereafter.
The very belief in the existence of a Finalmost element beyond this visible world, was the rich first fruit of the Divine dream given by Bhadrakali at Ahmadabad. His acceptance as a son by Bahucharaji Mother was through the dream in the temple.
His being permanently established as a devotee of Mother was the most invaluable Grace through the Direct Vision of Mother Herself,at the moment of his suicide leading despair.
In the very installation of Mai, it was the dreams of Her two devotees, one from Calcutta and the other from Shemoga (Mysore) that had played the important part of convincing the Founder about Mother's determined Will.
Further, he convened the Sisters' Social at Poona (Pune), simply because he took the dream-command as realistically as a General's command to his humble servant. The Madras (Chennai) Sisters' Gathering on 1-10-1949 (Dusserah day) was also the result of a later command in dream.
The activities in respect of the latter were enthusiastically taken up by leading Madras (Chennai) sister, (a resident of Mambalam) because she had a dream.
In Poona (Pune) Sisters' Social, one rich Parsi lady, eighty one years of age , was actually carried by her grand-daughters to the meeting because she had a dream ( as narrated by her grand-daughter during the meeting) to the purport attendance in that meeting was the highest expiation of all sins , for anyone belonging to any religion.
Seeing dreams in which Mother and Founder would be seen sitting together and sometimes playing some indoor or outdoor game and sometimes "hide and seek", was one variety. Mother teasing the Founder and the latter getting wrathful and running to catch Her and hit Her and Mother eluding the grip and laughing at his inability to cope with Her lighting speed - another variety.
In 1942 a lady from Karachi, and in 1944 a gent from Surat, came right down to Bombay (Mumbai) and Hubli respectively, simply because in their dreams they saw Mother sitting with an old devotee, who on description to someone knowing the the Founder, was believed to be he . On seeing the Founder in person, they expressed their happiest wonder and joyfully narrated their details of identification, while talking about the "dream-devotee" and the devotee-before-their-eyes.
Someone, with open eyes while meditating on Mother saw Her in life-size behind the Mother's worship picture. Her heart opened slowly as a thin mist of cloud scatters away to show the moon behind, and in Her heart's cavity, that one saw a small size bust of the Founder. Few seconds after, the heart closed up, setting a seal, as it were, over the heart protecting its beloved treasure.
Someone from Belgaum, who had been the Founder's guest, once heard words like this in his ears "Bachchako Jagaav. Bolo Do Niwaalaa Khaake So". -"My son, awaken; tell him two morsels having eaten, sleep". This was in his wonderful hearing on one of the Navaraatra nights, when the Founder had not taken his regular meal by day and being tired with work and worry about the success of the Poona Sisters' Social (9-10-1932), he lay on his cot half-hungry but half-sleepy and tired.
Someone would see the most graceful living slim figure of Mother as in the Maai picture, with the face of Founder. The Founder's face in that case would be quite young and beautiful ,without wrinkles and grey hairs.
Someone would see the beautiful Mother's face and body up to the waist from below in green sari and the upper body would be covered under the Founder's usual thin white shirt. Some would see half-Mother half-Founder. A layman in this matter may, for a time, argue, such dreams as are narrated above, may be the creation of their own mental thoughts, but we can't explained away like that, when the Founder actually experienced a vast, striking change in the attitude of the persons before and after their experience.
I am referring to the dream experience of Mysore (Shimoga) devotee, who carried the Mother -Installing message, referred to before . This young man happened to come to the hotel as a casual visitor, like one of so many passers-by where the Founder was residing. The Founder also , by chance, just went to the dinning -floor, at the time that man was dinning.
As soon as that man saw the the Founder quickly returning to his place, he suddenly left his half-meal and ran after the Founder. Most abruptly, he talked to Founder," Are you a devotee of a Devi?" Founder also made no delay, " Yes, not only a devotee, but a passionate, most uneasy devotee". Still more abruptly the man said, " I come from Mysore. I have a message to hand over to you from your Mother". The Founder got dumb-founded. "Yes, please come up to my room". The man followed. The message was communicated.
Said the man," I have come down so far. Would you not favour me with the spark of Love for Mother? I have enough of divine knowledge (Jnana) and Ritualistic Bhakti, just for my purposes ( this was only his modesty ). Said Founder," Are you prepared ? Would you sit with me on the bench of the Sheikh Sulla bridge (in Poona - Pune) during night hours?" He agreed. The Founder was sitting with him in exposure from 11 P.M. to 4 A.M. on a wooden bench.
The man went to his place. He was at the highest pitch of his desire that he may have a vision of Mother, at least in the dream. He had a dream, on sleeping. Mother appeared before him and said," You are now longing for my Darshan ( vision). Who was talking to you for hours on the bridge ? That was myself. You have not only seen me, but talked with me for hours." The man full of devotion and with tears in his eyes, narrated the event forthwith to the Founder, at the early dawn.
The reader may feel inclined to know similarly about the Calcutta message-bearer. With the command to carry the message in a dream, he came over to Poona (Pune). Finding no place in any other hotel, he had come over to the hotel where Founder resided.
With greater despondency as to how to find the man in such a large unknown city, he fell into sleep at 10 P.M. He had a dream."Don't be afraid and losing heart. I have brought you to the man." Just at 12 mid-night, you see things through the slits of the common door between your room and the front room. You have to hand over the message to the man there in the morning. Make a bold statement of what you see and the message."
The man saw the Founder at the said hour in communion, full of solicitations to Mother"to find some other man to install etc."and in lamentation and in his part of unconsciousness and ground-falling in swoon.
In the morning, he delivered the message in a bold convincing manner and that evening he left for Nagpur.
Once a great yogi arrived at the Founder's, in Hubli, as a distinguished rare guest. He was a master of English and Sanskrit in his young days. He had relinquished the world and was moving from place to place. He lived on milk, fruit and wet gram pulse uncooked.
The Founder remained all the while in high humility with his two hands folded and attended him as a waiter. Like Totapuri in Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa's life, he was talking to the Founder, almost spurningly or atleast belittlingly about Founder's devotional madness and absence of regularity, looseness in daily routine trivial matters, over-kindness to undeserving, mind weakness, etc. It was in the manner of a Gyani or a Yogi with an extreme superiority complex, talking from the terrace to a foot-path man. All this took place during the day time, on the first-arrival-day.
They slept that night at 2 A.M.Founder is a late riser. He usually sleeps after 3 A.M. and gets up between 8 and 9 in morn. As soon as Founder woke up, the Yogi made a long prostration, and began to speak in humblest words ,' Forgive me. Forgive my impudence, my folly, my swollen-headedness . For the first time in my life, I have a cause to repent. Even a house holder can be a highest religious man. Thou art the Divine Mother, in human form".
The Founder was shocked at such a change in few night hours.The Yogi told him, he had a dream. "With his Yogic powers, he was soaring high along a big mountain and was standing near the edge of the plateau. Somehow his foot slipped and he rolled most hurtfully along the slope.He was being crushed with ice-blocks falling on him. He came rolling at the foot of the mount.He had got senseless. When he got consciousness, he saw that one most beautiful Mother was nursing him. She lifted him and carried him to a long deep cave and placed him lying just at the cave-mouth. The Mother shouted hard to someone in the cave, 'Come out quick, a great Yogi has slipped from the mount and is most seriously hurt.' Out came a simple dressed quite an ordinary-looking man, with childlike lustrous face."
The Yogi at this point began to ask the Founder" Who do you think or guess this Saviour man might be?" The Founder gave some two or three names, Kali Kamaliwala, Lord Anand, etc. The Yogi impatiently said, "No. No", and then with an outburst of lamentation frantically prostrated to the Founder and catching his feet said," Who else can he be ??? It was you, you, you with merciful heart for anyone, even the worst sinners. You, human Merciful Mother." And he wept profusely.
There was one interesting instance of a lady. She was supposed to be the Maataaji. We have so many of them amongst Hindus, ladies in whose body some Devi would appear periodically. All will worship her, ask questions, advice and blessings, this was in a much earlier period. Whereas the Yogi incident was in 1944, this one was in 1936 in Poona (Pune). Somehow Founder was introduced to the lady, and she began to take him"right and left". She attacked him ruthlessly," Do you think mere knowledge is God's Grace?? Does any Maataaji favour you with Her Grace by making you yourself the Maataaji ? Can you tell me now what is going on at a certain place and a certain hour? Show me what you are capable of ." The Founder was more than "ground-dusted". He prostrated to her saying “I am simply a worthless nothing ". This took place at about 3 p.m. on a Sunday, at some common friend's house. The next day, she was found in her motor at the very door of the Founder's office. Founder was surprised. He took her in. There was no prostration, but full humility in her eyes. She asked pardon in the honorable manner that a lady, and one who was herself worshipped as Maataaji, can do.
She explained herself. She had a dream in the night in which she saw her own living Guru in Mount Abu. He was "red and hot" and telling her," What a foolish thing have you done !!! You have insulted and humiliated a great devotee whom I myself would consider a great privilege to meet. Find him out and immediately run to demand pardon ".She said she had no sleep for the rest of night. She knew only the office address and she had been there to ask his pardon at the first available moment.
On 15-9-1950, the Ganapati Installation day, a distinguished Swamiji of Madras (Chennai) city, who had seen the Founder only twice at Madras (Chennai) when he went for the first time to Madras for Sister's gathering on Dusserah day (1-10-1949), had a dream at 4.30 A.M. ; he wrote it out to the Founder. It was nearly ten months since they had any correspondence whatsoever. The substance was: " I was sitting on a sea-shore. Something took place and I was hurled down into the sea - life itself being in danger and practically lost. I began to struggle hard with hands and feet and to repeat with the highest intense devotion, the most effectious hymns and mantras of Shri Tripura Sundari, Ambika and Ganapati. All hope lost, but finally Mother was pleased to save me. There was an upward push which brought me near up to the surface. I was overjoyed at being practically saved. I saw Mother Herself on the shore, with "one". That "one" jumped into the sea and clasped my hand and pulled me out on the shore ".
The Swamiji further wrote, "Who do you think that "one" was?? I am myself so joyfully surprised to find who that "one" was. It was Mai-Swarup Mai Markand, Founder and President of Mother's Lodge. You are the most Beloved Soul of Mother. You are the replica, you are Her embodiment ", etc. etc.
The Founder has an inward satisfaction when he knows Mother's full Grace continuously showering on him. Mother gives dreams visions and messages to others and directly or indirectly informs others, as if to say Mai and Mai-Swarupa are nearest, if not Mother and son. But then comes an extremely sorrowful wave of a lamentation and yet turbulent mood. He goes to Mother and talks to Her," What have I to do with my recognition ? Is that my goal or happiness? No. I want the world to come forth with whatever sacrifice each one can make, to work with me , to spread Thy simple and straight religion. There I find a great cipher. Raise the minimum smoothness and peacefulness of average life of mankind. Let the happiness and misery, at the two extremities be much more heightened if that is necessary and inevitable , for exceptional few. But let the neutral man live a much better life, with Thy Grace of the raising the minimum. Let at least Thy devotees not suffer, for no fault of theirs, and for the only reason that they happen to be in the midst of the world's self invited destruction and misery all round them. If segregation or isolation is the only salvation remedy, if things can be made more smooth be a re-classification, do that. Do anything, but let the world be much happier than now.
Some few more things before we turn from Poona (Pune) to Ahmedabad to which the Founder was transferred. He was invited in June 1933 to speak on "God as Mother" by All-Faiths' Conference at Nasik and in 1934 by the ninth Indian Philosophical Congress on " Modern World and Mother-hood of God ". Founder had become so popularly known that he was addressed as Mother or dear Mother, or Mai or Maiji; even some college professors (like Suryanarayan Shastri of Madras-Chennai) who took part in the congress and conference addressed him as Mother. In a printed address in a casket given to him on transfer, the Founder was addressed as "Dearest most Merciful Mother ". The practice of addressing him as " Mother " has continued till now.
The Founder's Mother- absorption is most interesting. If there be any letter which did not start with Jay Mai from a man who had religious relation with him, he would tear it out and write to him, "your letter did not begin with ' Jay Mai ', so it has been torn out. Please write again. "If anyone, of course initiated, finished his letter without a reference to Mai, he will be out of his mood. " You want your son to recover, etc., you ungrateful mortals? You have not even the courtesy to enquire about Mother? "and suffering son will not recover soon. If on the other hand anyone wrote," Please tell Mother, the boy is suffering much "he will dance and immediately reply, or even wire," Mother will cure your son before next Friday " and that would surely happen. Founder says ," I have seen so much bankruptcy that with full knowledge about insincerity, I want Mother's remembrance and name repetition. At least let the courtesy be there. Let it be even lip-stated one. It is better than ungratefulness and absence of consciousness itself."
One day, one girl, 24 years, entered his place saying," Is Mother here? " Founder ran to to her with every devotional out-flow," Yes, She is here, come in ". He took her to the picture , performed a quick Arti and gave her prasad. The fact was something else. The girl was given an address of the building and her own mother had come to the adjoining block. The girl was wise enough not to give shock to Founder by telling the truth as she saw him over-joyful with supreme devotion. The girl went to the next block where her mother was seated and mother with her daughter came to the Founder for Founder's Darshan. Founder was so much ashamed when he knew the facts. With tears he said," Excuse me , please excuse me, I am mad after my Mother and feel as if the whole world has no business to do except to be occupied with Mother and Mother's work. Let my Mother however make amends for my folly. Have you any misery? "Their eyes were wet. The mother said," She my daughter herself is unhappy. Her husband had gone to Africa, does not send a single pie, not even a letter. " The Founder danced, blessed the girl by putting his hand over her head. " What a wise girl you are. You did not spurn and laugh at me an old devotional fool. Within nine Fridays you come here with your husband's letter and the money-payment information. " This actually happened.
When he went to Nasik in 1933, he was carrying Mother's picture in his hands. On the way from station to the college quarters, there was heavy rain which made it impossible for the motor to go further. Volunteers took away the bags. one of them said," Please give that picture to me. I will carry it safe. Said the Founder,"That picture is my Mother. She is the most obstinate mother and most naughty child. She won't go in any hands. She will harass me to carry Her myself all the long way off under rains.; just take Her." The weight was so very heavy, a young man of twenty himself half-bent down in water as if overloaded. None else dared trying, although Founder said," Do you wish to try any one of you ? "
Most important event which led to the broadcasting of Mai-ism in Gujerat and Sowrashtra was the initiation of Rev. Bro Keshavlal B. Pandya alias Kanishta Keshav. The spread of Mai-ism in poorer classes in Gujerat and Kathiawar was mainly due to his untiring work. His work can be imagined from the fact that there are not less than a hundred Mai Mandals and over fifty crores of Mai names have been written by different people by different places and there are two Mai Temples, one at Nadiad and the other at Rajkot in charge of brother Keshavlal and Markand Ray Vasavda alias Mai Kalapi respectively.
Keshavlal, a devotee of the Hindu Mataji was an assisting clerk to the editor of 'Jyoti ', a paper of Nadiad. He took an appointment with the Founder residing at Toddiwala road in Poona (Pune). He was sorely disappointed on a homely talk; he had expected a devotee's talk in which praises of Mataji and greatness of Geeta would be overflowing. He was surprised that there was nothing like a deity-grandeur and bathing-sanctity. The Founder talked in universal strain and especially on God as Mother without reference to Amba, Kali, Bhavani etc. He did not eulogise pilgrimage places. He talked of service, love, devotion and surrender. Both returned home from the Bund Garden where they had been. Keshavlal was dejected. Said the Founder pointing out to a simple Mother's picture," Shall we pray and worship " the question was confusing as if praying was playing, with nothing done in readiness. Keshavlal said dejectedly," Yes, I don't mind. What is to be done?" Founder replied," Do whatever you like. Sing, dance, meditate, kneel, pray, prostrate. Do whatever you love best.Three is no particular method with Mai. You know what will make you most absorbed in Mai. "
Keshavlal said he would perform Arti. Arti was prepared. While he waved the light, before he finished the first line of ' Namo Devyai ' he had Mother's full vision, the Arti dish fell on the ground and he fell like a tree under a storm, repeating," Oh Mother, I did not know Thee and recognise Thy devotee ". He rolled on the ground and placed his head in the lap of the Founder crying to him," Mother, excuse me, I did not recognise Thee ". When he came to normality, Founder took meals with him. The Founder asked him," Now let me know your religious difficulties, if any ". Keshavlal said with great joy," What do I want more? When you have showered on me the Grace of eye-to-eye vision of Mother? "The Founder told him," That is because in a particular matter viz., "Visualisation" you needed only a Guru to give the final stroke ". Keshavlal said he would do Mai's work. The Founder blessed him with the most brilliant success in Mai's work. Keshavlal was given a sanctified picture of Mai. In 1937, Keshavlal printed in the preface of his Chandi path the week-life -extension incident above described. He also printed the Mai Mantra "Jai Mai ", with all necessary instructions by the Founder. He also wrote " I also many others have many miraculous experiences about the efficacy of this wonderful Mother's Mantra ".
In about 1938 Keshavlal got a wave of renouncing the world. The Founder gave him the right understanding, emphasised the point that Mai-ism believed more in service of others that are suffering for want of understanding and guidance and solid assistance in religion than in striving for own's own progress, leaving the whole world to its own fate. Keshavlal finally gave a promise to continue Mai's work. Mai Mandals nearing hundred, each having nearly 100 to 125 members were organised by him in different places.
Outside India, Mai-ism has followers and Mother's Lodges in Singapore, Malaya, Nairobi, Mombasa, Daresalem,Aden etc.
The basic work of changing the " Power-aspect " to the " Mother and child aspect " has been admirably done; and practically by now, the old conception of Mataji which had made it an ignominy for anyone to be known as devotee of Mataji (Devi Bhakta was a taunting word, for a drunkard, one with no morals and full of secret powers of subjugating or ruining others) has been refined and reformed to be that of Mai. Regarding this healthy improvement, the following observation by a college-professor in Bombay (Mumbai) on 28 July 1950 is recorded here:
" The direct result of Kali age is atheism. It was largely arguemented by the so-called reformers of the society, who pulled the mass towards materialistic happiness and planted seeds of irreligion. The centuries-old current of national religiosity survived all destructive efforts but has surely got extremely weakened. In such times of embarrassment on all sides and from all quarters, as the saviour of mankind, Mai Swarup Mai Markand has raised his finger to show us the most merciful Mother parent and has renewed Mother-worship under Mai-ism with an altogether new conception, new form and new belief. He has facilitated and made anew the old path, long forgotten, misunderstood and misinterpreted. In the past, villains have cheated the blind-faith-ed mass. Mai Swarupa has torn asunder the black veils that intervened between the Merciful Mother and Her children through his teachings; he has shown the ways of Mother-worship that can well be followed conveniently in the changed circumstances of the modern world. The sacred teachings of Divine knowledge, kept concealed from the general public to strike fears, establish superiority, extract money and get benefits have been laid open by Mai-Swarupa to all without distinction of caste, creed and colour. The stagnant waters of religiosity have been made to flow smoothly. Evil things such as superstitious black magic and religious sanction to immorality have have been all swept out and annihilated. Let people once decide to give a trial to this religious remedy of removing their miseries. all ye that have their faith in the assurance given by the writer of these words, do believe that, just as writer has experienced himself, they too will have a miraculous peace and bliss on commencing the repetition of Mother's most efficacious Mantra " Jaya Mai Jaya Markand Mai, Jay Markand Rupa Mai, Jaya Markand Rupa Markand Mai ".
Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai.
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER III
MAI WORSHIP POPULARISATION
JAY MAI JAY MAI JAY MAI
The next shift goes to Ahmedabad where the Founder was transferred. The news about Sisters' social and Mother's Lodge had already preceded him, through papers etc. The Theosophical Lodge came forth with its co-operation for the sister institute of Mother's Lodge and a large gathering was held in the Theosophical Hall in Manek Chowk as also in the Hansraj Pragji Hall. Mai-ism was well explained to the citizens of Ahmedabad.
Here the Founder was dangerously ill and had to be operated upon and to remain as indoor patient of the Government Hospital. He had wonderful experiences of Mother's Grace in the Hospital. Mother Herself attended by two female deity-assistants appeared before the Founder every night [This was 13, 14 and 15 September 1934] for three consecutive nights , untied the bandage , cast a benedictory glance which removed all the pains and tied up the bandage and disappeared with a fortitude-pouring look. This incident got a great popularity as another patient (one Thakore, the previous inmate of the same room) on the night the Founder was taken there, actually saw Mother alone entering the door and immediately leaving after seeing the Founder in unconsciousness. He broadcast-ed the wonderful experience the next day to the vast number of his own visitors.
The Founder was burning with rage against Mother because She discontinued Her attendance after three nights, for the simple reason that while She was removing the bandage to heal, he had the human weakness of no confidence and had moved his hand over his open parts to make sure he was not in a delusion. As soon as it became possible for him to crawl without any outside help, his first work was to drag himself slowly in sitting posture to the Mother's picture in his solitary room.
Right from 10.30 p.m. to 5.30 a.m. he was profusely weeping and giving most provocative accusations to his dearest Mother, in the highest spirit of love indicated by the torrents of tears and yet in the bitterest quarreling mood. He pierced arrows," YOU can not excuse a single human weakness ? Why did you come at all to heal me if you are so very touchy and take no time to make any the smallest thing to mean a grave offence ? Who had called you ? You are not Mother but demoness of Maya that creates and swallows up her own children. Were it not for Thee there would have nothing like a Universe and nothing like millions rolling in miseries. They are the happiest who know nothing of Thee, or if by chance they happen to know , who spurn Thee. You get only the weakest and most docile men in your clutches. Has anyone in Thy clutches been made happy by Thee ? If Thou art so very spiteful, mind , I will also take revenge . When Thou art full of love-surge for me , I too will evade Thee and run away etc."
His blaming, accusing, quarreling all along weeping profusely and bowing to the Lotus Feet again and again continued right up to the morn when cocks began to crow and birds to chirp and milkmen began to run on their bikes on the public roads.
Just then, Mother Herself in living and moving from sprang forth and stood before him and spoke most wrathfully thus, " Blame, scold, accuse, abuse; but from this second without a single drop of tear. If one drop anymore now falls, I am never never never Thine and thou art never never mine ". And with these words She disappeared.
The most inconceivable ultimatum gave him a heart stop. A wonderful compulsory change.A change indescribable. He feared he may just die of heart-failure and die to be born a permanently abandoned and discarded soul, expelled from Her. The very first speediest precautionary thing that his soul so very speedily decided, climbed and sprang to , was the humblest and highest apologetic praise line :
" Oh Mother, Hasne Hasane Wali , Oh my ever smiling and ever making to smile Mother ! " He prostrated with a determination never to get up till Mother raised him or permitted to rise."
"Thou art always smiling and always keeping Thy devotees smiling ". First thing he laughed an artificial loud laughter that thundered throughout the room. From the mind and moment of the deepest lamentation and sorrow, to that of the highest laughter, though artificial. Raising a spiritual 'Maginot Line' of self-surrender against Mother's permanently leaving, catching the Lotus Feet preventing them to go away, with the most piteous invocation for pity and pardon.From the scorching heat to the freezing cold. Mother be thanked, the heart-glass did not break due to extremes, as one doctor said.
He continued his songs : " How can I imagine that with me Thou art also weeping ? I was all along under the belief that Thou art busy with washing off my sins by making me weep. I am wrong, blunderful. Please excuse , I assure Thee. Not a single drop shall now fall. Why should I, the dearest child of Thee, weep when the whole world has begun smiling (at dawn) ? Oh Mother, Thou smile, make me smile. Forget and forgive my having made Thee to weep. All have been smiling now in Thy Universe. Oh, dearest Most Merciful Mother, Thou art the embodiment of smile. I am laughing now. Thou too laugh."
The Founder's teachings were entirely different and contradictory to Hinduism. " No prohibitions to Harijans in Mai-worship ", was something which was surely to upset any Sanaatanist and ordinary average Hindu ( in 1935 ). Once large meeting was to be held for which Bhadra Kali Hall on River Sabarmati was sought to be employed. The answer given by the authority was," We know Markand Bhai ( Founder ) as a great devotee who has personal relationship with Mataji, but his views are entirely eccentric. He would allowed even Harijans to attend Mai-worship. If he undertakes to put a poster " Harijans are not allowed " we would be extremely glad to give our hall free for not only once but every week for Mai-worship ". The universality of Mai-ism was a contradiction to the " Nothing so great and sublime as Hinduism " of an average Hindu . People of Ahmedabad loved pampering. " Is there any Harishchandra in any other religion ? Show us." There will be thunderstorm of claps and cheers. Their own blood-sucking black-marketing of the present day should not be in sight or referred to."What has that to do with religion ?" , an average black-market man astonishingly asks.
He tried to get sympathies of some Parsees and Mohammedans and some Jains to try to form a cosmopolitan institute of the Poona type. He tried to bring about the different sons and daughters of different religions together and to concentrate their attention to the need of creating oneness as the children of the same Universal Mother. He had the sympathies of two Muslim brothers, Mr. Hakim and a Sufi gentleman Mr. A.G. Usman who had travelled over the continent and who had written books , a Zoroastrian brother, Mr. Meherjibhai Ratoora and a Sanatanist brother Mr. A.S. Iyengar, a learned follower of Shri Ramanujacharya , who had a universal outlook with every tolerance, and was an officer in Labour Department . The Founder started with a desire to caret a collection of people who were universal-minded ; he wanted a congregation of various souls who would be believing in securing their welfare by fostering the spirit of sisterhood, brotherhood and performing staunch devotion and living a life of love, service, devotion and surrender, He had not had the success in collecting together such souls , mostly for the reason that there were few and those few also not in favour of an institutional activity . they wanted only personal relations with the Founder.
When practical, intellectual and ordinary worldly working fails , spirit has to work, it is here that the miraculousness acts its wonderful part, as it has often done in the case of all religious movements and religious Founders. When work, labour, money, logic, philosophy, intellectual exposition or contractual or natural sympathy fails, such superior qualities as Faith, Sincerity, Honesty of purpose, Spirit of service , God's Grace, Intensity, Ardour and Zest, all are put to severe test. When what a man explains , does or has done, fails to appeal, the subtler issue of what he actually is, inwardly a sa soul rises up in the minds of people demanding the satisfaction of a personal practical indisputable test. It is a test of inner qualities and supernatural powers and God's Grace. There the Founder was strong by Mai's Grace.
In 1935 the Founder came in contact with late brother Kantilal Desai, a truely religious gentleman. Bro. Kantilal Desai introduced the Founder to Rev. Kaushikram Mehta. The latter was a man of highly scriptural lore, a Sanskrit scholar and writer and a highly religious man of the old Sanatan school with a sense of moderation and tolerance superior to that of usual Sanatanists. The latter often tested the Founder like this : " In my Dhyana of Hindu Mother the Founder's figure must appear ". " He must come just now to see me ." " When I return from Surat, I must meet him at Bhadrakali temple square during office hours, when he can not be away from office." Tests became stronger and entered the realms of financial, social and physical reliefs as they were satisfied, till Kaushikram and others came by experience to at least one conclusion viz., that whether his views and philosophies be agreed to or not, one thing was certain that the Founder had great influence with Mai and had most wonderful powers , of helping people in distress. Powers much greater than the highest and most effective worldly powers , with their possibilities. The popularity of Mai-ism in Ahmedabad was full indebted to the sincere efforts and simple sermons of Rev. Kaushikram whom the Founder had respected all along and who enjoyed pleasure in prostrating to the Founder even in congregations as Praytyaksha Mai. The Rev. K. began to take most lively interest in Founder's next burning desire to bring into existence a small institute for the propitiation of Mai. It did not take a long time for a man of his religious repute to make the Mother's Lodge a very popular institute with success and its admirably working till today. The Founder declared him to be president of Mother's Lodge, Ahmedabad.
Ahmedabad and Poona [Pune] showed their own individualities and point of excellence. In Poona Mai showed the intellectual beauty of Her tenets. Mother shouted jumped and ran.In Ahmedabad Mother showed the practical utility of Mother's Grace , sang lullaby to various suffering children and worshiped Herself in vast functions. Poona was theory; Ahmedabad was practice. Poona brought fame and popularity, Ahmedabad brought Mai-Mataji proximity and practical relief to people.
In the words of Rev. Kaushikram, it will require a big volume to recount all the wonderful experiences that people attained as a result of Mai devotion.
The Founder saw now the clear necessity of dealing at much larger length with the subject matter of Mai-ism and that of practical instructions for persons wishing to pursue the religious path on the lines of Mai-ism.He began to write and print several leaflets and booklets : " God as Mother ", and " Theory and Principles of Mother's Lodge " in English ; " Salient features of Mai Dharma ( Mai Dharma Mukhya Tarka Bindu ) in Gujerati ; Further things were " Mai Tattwa Pujaan and Mai Kumari Kavach " in Gujerati " Heaven and Hell " ( Swarga and Naraka ) and " Mai- Shakti " both in Gujerati printed in pieces in " Shakti " of Nadiad.
A word of Mai Kumari Kavach.If we wanted to raise up the spirituality, morality, religiosity, sociability and nobility of a nation or a community, the female world would have to play the most glorious part in that nation lifting work.Home discipline and home education under the watchful superintendence of mothers and parents is the very foundation of national character formation. The idea set forth in Kumar Kavach was that of the most disciplined Mai-worship, as if Mai temples were regular schools , on Tuesdays by Kumaris ( unmarried girls of different ages ) in presence of their parents , teachers and conductors of worship. The Mai-worship itself would take a small. almost negligible time, but the actual training imparted as in a school would be the main most purpose. The untaxing easy playful free and frolicsome way of teaching would be that in the shape of readings of useful practical instructions and lessons for virtuous religious and moral living , by each one of the Kumaris present, turn by turn and under the blessings and sanctity of the parents and Mai. Today such practice may look ridiculous. Once it is started and brought into full swing, it would be appreciated as an indispensable moral necessity and the institute will have the reputation of a training ground . Imagine before you a vast meeting of girls from eight to eighteen reading prayers , teaching highest practical life truths and being blessed by a huge congregation of all mothers and fathers in the presence of the most Merciful Divine Mother Mai. What a tremendous lifting work that institute would be doing can not be imagined. All new things are first ridiculed and then considered indispensable by virtue of their benefits.
The most important and exhaustive work of the Founder was " Mother and Mother's Thousand Names " covering over 750 pages.l
That mostly includes all that is of importance in " God as Mother " and " Theory and Principles of Mother's Lodge ". Next came Mai Sahasranama with Mai prayers and " Mai Guru Ananya Bhakti " in Hindi.Then came forth English " Mother's Message ", Gujerati " Mai Sandesh " and also Tamil translation of the same ( Thai Myi Vazhi ).
The Mai Sahasranama volumes are believed to be have been dictated to the Founder by Mother Herself as stated by Rev. Ananta Krishna Shastri, commentator of and writer of many religious books . These volumes have the wonderfulness of giving correct guidance to persons who repeat Mai-Sahasranama. On 17-3-1950 a devotee asked Mother to relieve him of his financial difficulties and on opening the book after nine repetitions of Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai, had the funny answer : " People living on much higher standards than their legitimate earnings and means permit , at the cost of others, by deception, borrowing, stealing etc., need a rod. " [ Page 56, Volume 2 Part 3 ]. Once the Founder, in a depressed mood, was pressing Mother to give him proof whether at least She was pleased. He concentrated and opened the book. It was page 114, part 4, Mai's name Adrisya : " Repeating Mother, Mother , Mother he himself became Mother ". The Founder's depression turned into laughter; he said," who will praise a deformed and deficient son except his own Mother ? "
The next shift was to Bombay [ Mumbai ]. Bro. Parixit Raiji, son in law of Rev. Kaushikram Mehta , had come to receive the Founder and take him from the station to his home on his way to Poona [ Pune ]. Raiji spoke to the Founder about the instability of his service in Bombay and a chance of a bit better pay in Ahmedabad; the Founder asked him, did he like Bombay or Ahmedabad life ? " If you like Bombay life , Mother will see that you prosper and have not to leave Bombay, on one condition viz., that you will start Mother's Lodge at your place and conduct Friday worship as at Ahmedabad." Brother Raiji agreed and the Founder installed Mai in his bungalow at Santa Cruz on Tagore Road. Brother Raiji was quite well off in a very short time. This was in 1936.
Bombay was the first place where the Founder saw what royal hospitality on the grounds of the high religiosity for an unlabeled man, not in robs with tonsured head, meant. Bombay people were the first who had the idea of a duty to make some return towards the relief of the Founder's financial strain for Mai work., in view of their religious and material benefits received from the Founder. He was given the religious status he had ere long deserved. His arrival in Bombay would be announced at the previous Friday meeting, on receiving Founder's telegram from Poona. The worship was conducted on a grand and magnanimous scale. The function took more than three hours from 9 p.m. onwards. During other hours daily, the Founder would be helping the visitors with patient hearing and administrating righteous advice , solving difficulties, removing religious misunderstandings and initiating desirous and deserved persons into the methods of Mai devotion and Mai Sadhana.
Once [ This was in October 1939 ] the Founder was invited at Navaratra big celebration in Vile Parle. It rained heavily and continuously. The celebrator [ The celebrator was Mohanlal of Dawn Mills ] had great devotional respect for the Founder whom he took to the place on the last day. The sacrificial altar worship was interrupted and had to be left uncompleted due to rains. The celebrator was very sorry.Said the Founder," Don't be sorry at all. In these days who is devotional enough to even utter the name of God ? Mother must remain satisfied with whatever possible being done while exerting one's best. If She does not, even that much will be done by none and the final remnants of God and religion will also disappear and will be obliterated." The celebrator modestly said," These are only conventional sweet words. They do not give any assurance or satisfaction.". The Founder stared at him," Do you want really an assurance? Are you so sorrowfully wounded? "The celebrator said with great humility," I am really sorrowful and thinking nothing for the last three days , except that I could not complete this sacrifice due to profuse rains. I am doing this every year and I am afraid , I have lost all Mai's Grace.". The Founder was in high spirits and said," No ! No ! No ! No ! Don't judge the Mercifulness of Mother by our mortal standards ; and were you at fault that there was profuse raining ?" The celebrator sweetly smiled ," No. But is Mother so very merciful ? " Said the Founder," Yes. Only thing is our sincerity and intensity is almost nil. If that is genuine are there not instances of Mother Herself appearing from the Sacrificial altar ? " He stopped abruptly, got up and bent near the altar and prayed in loud words ," Mother, who will be Thy devotee if Thou dost not give encouragement and proof of Thy Mercy in this Kali yug at every step of Thy devotees ? See, here is Thy devotee , he is out and out depressed . The world smashes us and Thou also dost not take any heed.Does it befit Thee ? Does it befit the Divine Mother, the Most merciful Mai ? "
No sooner were these word addressed, than there was a blaze of fire as high as seven feet above the altar and that remained there for about 10 to 12 minutes till the Arti was finished. All were stunned and assured of Mother's existence and Mercy and of the Founder's relations of a " Son-to-Mother " whose request She would not fail to grant. This miracle incident spread all over Bombay as there were about 50 persons present.
The above instance was a more developed variety of a similar experience at Ahmedabad. After the usual Friday Mother's lodge worship was over, there had remained about 30 persons of the inner circle. Some of them strongly requested the Founder to show them some miraculous happening which would increase their faith regarding the existence of Mother and Her readiness to carry out the wishes of Her devotees. It was at that most sacred place that , a year before [ This was in April 1938 ] the Founder was discoursing on Mother's names " Suvaasinyarchanpreethaa ", and there was a powerful breeze of the most fragrant smell. It was so very pleasant that every one began to ask others ," Do you feel the most pleasant fragrance ? This is how Mai wants to assure us about Her love to Her son ". This former experience being talked over again gave a strength to the desire of all present there to make the request more pressing. The Founder asked," What do you want to see ? " Someone said," We wish to see that Mother gives Her garland to you." The Founder prayed for few minutes standing before Mother at a respectful distance. The garland gradually untied itself, flew in the air and fell [ This happened in April 1939 ] on the neck of the Founder.
The Founder does not give great importance to miracles , but there is surely a stage when miracles do the eye-opening work for many people who are really of an atheistic mentality. Saints do not count upon miracles to enlarge their influence , but these are casual happenings managed by the deities themselves to enhance the value of their devotees, so that be heard with love, faith, respect and obedience. The Founder says humorously," how do miracles help you and me , if you do not make a point of being the deserving plane in the matter of devotion, love, service and surrender ? I would show you actual Mai Herself, but you are the same person that you were before the Vision. You would be telling Mother," Mother, we, I and my wife are going to the cinema. Please rock the cradle of the child and keep meals ready when we return. " " You would be exploiting Mother, " Mother do this and do that ", yourself doing nothing for Mother except babbling some few words of praise, a little trouble of twisting your tongue to cheat the world, yourself and the Guru. The height of ungratefulness is that you do not even talk about your gratitude or even of the experience to your husband, wife, children or neighbors. You bury your gratitude than and there. She prefers being neglected and ignored rather than be exploited and expelled after your need is served."
At Poona after re transfer in 1938, the Founder had at that time much greater contact with Madrasees, especially , of Military Arsenal at Kirkee. Madrasees were not so much for singing and Bhajans but were more fond of intelligent religious discourses with a unique respectfulness and attitude of humble disciple before his Guru and grandeurful worships and Mantra repetitions and rendering humble prostration and service to the Founder. The Founder has in his memory one glorious instance of Mother-worship in Kirkee when not less than 20 thousand rose flowers and jasmines were dedicated to Mai and there was a congregation of 500 persons.
It was these Madrasees who had been very helpful in writing down to his dictation, transcribing and rewriting and typing and correcting etc., the manuscript of his Mai Sahasranama.
For the latter half of the year 1942 , the Founder was serving in Bombay. This gave him a great opportunity to spread Mai-ism and to give convincing proofs of different people what miraculous benefits Mai's devotion and worship is capable of offering to the suffering world.
Some people began to think that the Founder had no higher ideal than relieving the worldly miseries of persons and they hence censured him as on a lower level than the average worldly man.
It has been the centuries old mentality, to consider worldly-distress-relieving work to be much inferior variety of religious work. The highest seat would be given to one who bombastically talks Geeta, Vedas , and Darshans ; the next place would be given to the poor and humble Bhakta; the man who advises on practical life matters or helps people in distress is only Mr. So and So.
Once a city was flooded; lives were in danger. A circus proprietor engaged his whole self; all worked day and night, it was a tiring work. The proprietor saved so many lives; he could keep his sustaining power only with alcohol. He was standing hours together in sun. What about the religious response and recognition ? The Founder heard of his frequent drinking and his being condemned drunkard twenty times more than his bravery, service and sacrifice. To have both the spirit of service and sacrifice and its observance of religious requirements is surely most commendable. But if both don't go together, Service and Sacrifice should not be unrecognized . Mai-ism wants service to humanity being recognized as not simply a praiseworthy act of humanity but a fully religious act. Mai-ism most emphatically says that selfless service with nothing -sparing sacrifice and without expectation of recognition is as religious and Mother-propitiating as Mother worship, Prasad distribution, Mantra repetition etc., if not more.
People lose their head when they think about religion. There are wrong judgments in religious matters. Beliefs, tendencies, like and dislikes play a predominating part in the matter of religion. Unfamiliarity , unapproachability and mystic aloofness become an enchantment to some and a matter of dis-like to others. Grandeur, impressive talks and congenial circumstances to forget the worries of worldliness create an imaginary heaven for some. For some others a certain unhappy mentality spoils the whole picture. All these factors plays an important part in all religious judgments . These factors crates certain once-for-all impressions and prejudices which form the basis of all subsequent outlook. So many inherited and acquired factors and beliefs rush in and gave their color to the whole vision . After all , what counts is one's own individuality and stage of development and spiritual attainment. The very same religious person appears to some as Avatar, to some other as maniac and to still some others as even a cheat.
People believe there can be no saintliness without certain externals and settled routine ways of living and stern unapproachability . Commonsense gets occluded and confused.
Whom to approach and with what mentality for one's spiritual progress is a perplexing problem. There must be the initiation, the giving of Mantra and instructions and a particular programme and a continued personal contact through visits, letters, dreams, visions etc.
The Founder's mentality is this. God, Guru and Religion are going down and down day-to-day. People want relief from all their miseries and greater happiness of the type they conceive. Scripture's teachings , rules and regulations have almost miserably failed. Let us than meet people on their own ground. The Founder has very funny experiences how people can be brought round to a recognition of religious living on being shown that their miseries can be and are removed by undertaking a certain religious process for removal of certain misery. When people get sicken about a religion because it is too old and shut their doors , its external colour should be changed and it should be poured from the sky-roof holes. That is what a Mother and Mother's religion alone would do , just as doctors do artificial feeding through injections.
Once the Founder was in the house of atheist as a guest. The landlord who was hospitable and courteous in every way, defiantly said he did not believe in religious thongs. Two days later, the pet son of the man fell dangerously ill. The boy surprise-fully said to his parents , " I won't be cured unless you worship Mai that has come to us and repeat Mantras which Baba dictates ". The man explained the situation to the Founder. Said the Founder," It does not matter you have no faith. Your son has his full faith and that is more than enough . Do this thing for the sake of recovery of your son. We shall see at the end how long you are retaining your atheism." The boy began to be speedily cured and the whole family become changed in the matter of their outlook on religion. Religion is now required to exhibited from home to home and man to man.
It is not that Nishkama Bhakti is not preached or held in higher reverence than Sakama Bhakti by the Founder. The fact of facts is the Founder has accepted ' Stooping to Conquer ', like a mother, as She is really the mother that has no hesitation to descend to the plane of Her children , when the latter are disabled to climb up the plane by plane to meet Her. This is what the Founder explains ' practical spiritual diplomacy '.
The Founder says," Let there be any amount of Atheism, so long man has a body, he is sure to have physical sufferings , so long he has a heart , he is sure to have disquietude ; so long he has desires he is sure to be in some pressing need. Where can the poor creature escape ? How long can he run away ? Truly capacious religious teachers have to develop their giving power and the world will remain in their fist with folded hands. Few are disbelievers about the existence of God, in their heart of hearts. Fewer are the believers of God that are not his beggars ; and our talks about dealing with God are entirely dependent on how he keeps us. Except for few blessed, none wants God and religion but for their own self-interest. They do not love God. They love what God gives, money, wife, children, happiness, heaven, peace , bliss etc.; they are in fact not loving these things , in the absolute sense. They are loving only themselves. We can't expect the world to be consisting of one and all on the highest plane of dis-interested love. Let the animal-deity mixture with each one be only very gradually increased by truly religious persons to greater and greater strength of the Godliness element.
To be the master, one has first to serve as a servant. People have to be served in their own way. Create the feeling of gratitude and a confidence in you by numerous precedents of your having helped them. Mai-ism admits all legitimate moral and harmless desires and their satisfaction through Mai propitiation.
Secure contact with a saint. That requires no particular rare fitness. Serve him. Remain with him as much as you can. He will introduce you to the Divine Power. That Power will give you Vision. There after start the machinery of ' One's self, One's Guru, One's God, One's Guru, One's self ' ad infinitum.
Carry the relief to the world and the world is yours. It will join you in the praises of Almighty. God is not hungry of your praises. Praising is a part of the remedies to help yourself for your own good. Study the situation most minutely, meditate deeply and you will come to no other conclusion than the present world needs the MOST MERCIFUL MOTHER that does not weigh the world's action, but forbears , forgives and forgets and relieves the world's miseries out of a magnanimity of Her Own self without even a word of recognition. And that is Mai-ism, the propitiation of God as Mother, with love, service , devotion and unconditional cheerful self-surrender.
The Founder's views on this matter can be seen from the following. He was once a famine supervisor in Baroda State [ This was in 1913 ].There was a laid down standard of quantity of excavation and daily wage in proportion to the work. The maximum rate was three annas a day which would help to just keep the body and soul together. After his appointment he soon saw in about a week that more than 80 % could not be entitled to the minimum meal wages. By starvation the coolies became weaker and weaker and doing still less work. The viscous circle started. He was moved to pity. He became extremely liberal in his measurements and saw that every one got the minimum so as not to starve. The shortage of work of 3000 persons was gradually increasing. He hoped it will be made up, but that day never came. A complaint had already reached the head office that he was too liberal and it was ordered that a sub-engineer should give a surprise visit and check measurements and the total amount paid. The Founder had handed over his fate in the hands of his dearest Mother after profound sorrow on hearing the report.
During this period of suspense, His Highness visited the place. The technicalities of the work were inspected ( not the finance ). His Highness was quite pleased , but the Founder was trembling within his heart; ' all this satisfaction will disappear on sub-engineers report .' But there was his Mother at his beck and call, ever protecting him. Three days later , Her Highness came over. She expressed great satisfaction at the healthy glow joyfulness and the minimum number of deaths and illness in the Founder's camp. She called him at her royal tents. This was the conversation. Her Highness said," I find your famine work arrangement has shown the best condition of preservation in the whole state . What do you wish me to do for you ? I propose distributing clothes to all your work people ." The Founder said," They will be praying God's blessings on your Highness more and more for the bounty. they are already more than grateful for their very lives being saved." The queen saw there was some deep meaning. She said," Be plain." Founder said," I have been very liberal, too liberal in measurements." " That ought to be , is it not ?" The object in view is to see that poor people survive ." Her Highness guessed more than half things , on looking deeply into the Founder's face."
The chief engineer came with the executive engineer to pay his respects. The queen said," I was just talking to your supervisor ; he told me he was very liberal in measurements. I said to him he ought to be , for the object in view for which famine works have been started. " The executive engineer picked up his opportunity," Your Highness, I have been constantly visiting the work and I have found him working best and I have already strongly reported recommending him to our chief engineer here ". The chief engineer took not a second to shake his head as if to convey he has received the report and issued orders which had promoted him . Needless to say, the executive engineer sent a memo to the sub-engineer to cancel the inspection.
His Highness would be seeing efficiency . Her Highness would be seeing the preservation and well feeding of the subjects. that is the difference between God as Father and God as Mother.
If saints leave their mountain caves, river banks and sea-coasts , if they condescend to just be in the midst of people , try t find out solution for their burning questions ; and guide them and make people stronger in religiosity, the task will be more successfully and happily done. Take up yourself a major part of ignorant, unhappy children's responsibility . Mix freely and be one of them. Familiarity will , I admit, bring contempt or at least a devaluation. None would be awe inspired of you. None will give you big names. You may be considered even below the average and even mad. But you will be doing much more solid work and make a handsome return of what the world has done for you. Don't forget. Your physical needs are supplied by the world itself. What does it matter if a saint's salvation is delayed by some few lives because he has engaged in the noblest and loftiest work of discharging his debt to world ?
The latter half of 1942 which the Founder passed in Bombay ( Mumbai ) was greatly useful in the matter of the spread of Mai-ism. Shri. Swami Asimanand having heard about it came over there and gave a thrilling discourse on the greatness of Mother and principles of Mai-ism. Here the spiritual powers of the Founder were getting more exhibited. Some innocent girl, turned away by the husband was received honorably in the house. A radio songstress that was ill of typhoid with all hopes lost , was most speedily cured . One of the devotee got a miraculous lift from the post of Rs. 250/- to be an officer with trebled pay. A lady who had lost her husband who was on the verge of turning lunatic or committing suicide was gradually brought to the normal quietude. An officer who had been degraded for over two years was restored to his former post. So many things gave a convincing proof about the highest efficiency of Mother's Mercy on devotion and straight living and gave a complete idea about what the Founder Mai Markand was to Mai.
Mai-ism led many young people who had a contempt for religion to realize its importance. They were brought in direct connection with Religion as Mai-ism is religion mainly of service and Sadhana. Some people did remain selfish and soon forgetful after the calamity disappeared , but then they were raised from the state of total blankness to the stage of periodical devotion under calamities. Some few did rise to permanent devotion and even to Nishkama Bhakti.
The Founder is anxious to see that not only the world but the religious teachers and even saints set a high religious value to service and sacrifice. Infuse the spirit amongst people to serve and sacrifice for one another in the very commonest daily routine life . Pull them up in devotion even though they are approaching you for some desired objects. Don't bring the sheltering pretext of the Prarabdha Theory and the sophistry of not dabbling with the Divine Law of human suffering.
For heaven's sake don't evade issue by saying ," We have never said service and sacrifice are bad things ." What is wanted is a positive teaching with every emphasis , temporarily throwing all other better things of religion. Begin yourself giving and creating high values to persons that render service and sacrifice for public even in small worldly matters. You yourself set up precedents by coming down to the common man's plane for teaching people to serve others. The world will begin to walk in your footsteps. Teach your religion with service and sacrifice as its very alpha and bets.
Mai-ism says there can be no religiosity without selflessness and there can be no selflessness without love. There can be no love unless you begin and have constantly before your mind that you please God as Mother by loving and serving and sacrificing for Mother's children. The said truth can never be permanently set up in your heart as long as truth is not replenished with the strength of a religious commandment.
The Founder is not looking for any immediate success and result. He is passionately fond of recording religious experiences and conclusions. He is working not only for some few in this age but for ages to come . There is a time for everything. If there is none , nothing is lost. What could even otherwise have been a better use of his life ? At least he is pleasing Mother. The world fails to profit by its saints during their life time. How difficult has it been to establish the Shishya -Parampara , continued lineage - the relationship of Master and disciples ?
" The world leaves the living and decorates the dead. " as was stated in a composition composed and sung by Mai-ist devotee in one of the meetings.
JAY MAI JAY MAI JAY MAI
MAI-ISM
CHAPTER IV
MAI’S MANDATE
The Founder was re-employed in Hubli in continuation of his service in Bombay from 1942. People came forth from Bombay [Mumbai] to have Darshan and blessings. The Founder had some new types of experiences here which he wishes to be recorded.
The Founder is of the opinion that every saintly or spiritual aspirant should record his experiences with the preciseness of all laboratorial experiments results. There must be standing public institutes for the said work. In India, no saint ever leaves after him a guidance for the younger generation in the shape of his own personal experiences. The disciples or devotees of the said saint are always anxious to show to the world that the saint was perfect from the day he was born. He was never even a quarter step out of the straight path or away from the consciousness of perfection or needing any illumination. People want their saints to be only a perfect image, perfect from the day they came to existence. They are not interested in the life of a saint as a man in the making, whereas in reality it is the deep study of those details alone which can help the future generation in the line towards a solid progress.
Mere worshipping our saints, Gurus and great men without trying to follow in their footsteps won't help us. No Guru will give us the nectar unless we love and serve him, unless we are devoted to him and unless we try our best to be what he is with unconditional and cheerful self-surrender. It is not that the saints are less merciful, but there are limitations beyond which the eternal Divine Law does not permit the result to accrue. One unit can be multiply to be 100 units, but zero remains a zero however great the multiplier may be.
To return to the experiences, the Founder was given a bungalow as a guest to temporarily reside. On the first day in Hubli a big gathering was held there and rich Prasad and sweets were distributed. Just then, a bitch got in and she was driven out without giving a bit and with a stick. At 2 a.m. after departure of all, Founder prayed to Mother, for the success of the first gathering in Hubli. He had not taken his meals. He had the joy of success but an overwhelming sorrow at the idea of the bitch being beaten out without a bit of bread. He was disgusted with man's non-consideration for other men, what to speak of animals. In a great disgust he decided not take his meals and laid himself down on his cot. At half past two the very same bitch which was turned out with beating came out from below the cot, began to lick the Founder and pulled his garments towards the kitchen ! The Founder was happy like anything. He went to the Puja-room , worshiped the bitch and began to eat with the bitch, his own meals , partaking with bitch half to half. He caressed the bitch," Are you now satisfied? " " Mother ! Hast Thou sent a bitch to see that I do not sleep hungry? "He wept with his face against the bed out of gratitude. When he opened his eyes after composure, he was surprised to see that the bitch was no where there in the whole bungalow of which all the doors had been locked before going to bed.
The Founder had once been in a condition for twelve days. This is the actual description: Any thought ( people have experience , how many thoughts they have in a second ), any one of them which did not mean a feeling of love, service, devotion or surrender to Mother, as soon as it rose in the brain , gave him a fire burning which gave an unbearable shooting pain and was nothing sort of a physical burning. The only difference was , unlike physical burning, here it was an unbearable burning which disappeared as soon as the thought subsided. Suppose you are traveling in a second class through an extremely hot country. You have closed all windows and have kept ice around you. Immediately something goes wrong and all the windows fall open. A burning blast of extremely hot air attacks you from all sides. You immediately run and close all windows and the burningness disappears.
To start with, he would have hot-fire-blasts at any other thought. Here I am afraid the reader can't imagine. Any thought means absolutely any. Even such a thought as " My name is so and so '". Any means any, absolutely. People cannot imagine certain states of blankness without having the actual experience . Their nothing is much above the real nothing and they suspect exaggeration. It is interesting to have an idea of Founder's habitual ordinary blankness. He would have often to ascertain whether he took meals or not , by seeing if there are any used dishes or whether the food kept for him has remained in the vessel or not. He could not recognize his own daily used things and would show the poorest memory about his possessions. Even after sixty, he can't distinguish between similar fruits daily used in his home or the most common grains or cereals. He believes that one of the secret of his devotional success is his strictest observance of ' No vacancy ' for admission in his brains to anything except those that are indispensable. With this knowledge the reader will be able to conceive what the Founder's ' nothing ' in the blankness referred to in the said experience can mean.
But later it came to a climax when even a thought like ' Mother is Merciful ' gave a burning blast. Even the idea of ' Mercifulness ' was inadmissible. Beyond ' Mother ' absolutely nothing was permitted. ' Mother' alone , not even the predict and the verb. A thought even like this, " Mother Thou art alone true, the rest is all unreal " was not admissible.
It was a period when he had alternate seconds of hot blasts and normal rests. Just as a victim even when there is over powering force would assert himself before losing his life , he would not mind the painfulness of the hot blasts and say ' " Mother, not even Thy mercifulness ? Not even Thy greatness? Not even Thy oneness? Not even my saying ' I do not exist outside Thee? ' " He would dash his head against the pedestal where Mother was installed and weep with the frightful notion of incoming insanity. He knew this was a process of reforming every atom of his brain and mind. But who can guaranty a happy end? He had previous experiences of the type and he had passed through them with Mother's highest Grace, but who can say what will be the end ? The mutilation of the mind itself ?
The stage automatically disappeared after twelve days , by Mother's Grace , not gradually but all at once , just as he were pulled out by a crane from deep drowning waters to the shore.
How foolish it is to ask a devotee, how often he had dealing with his deity and worshipped. There is no end of it. What the world knows of true devotee is only a sample and a drop.
One more experience which the Founder repeats with pleasure is this. Opposite to his bungalow was the bungalow of a well-known songstress. Once at 2 a.m. he was in meditation in a room with none except V.L. B. ( Bro. V.L.Baddi) , his constant companion in Hubli. The Founder began to hear most pleasing celestial music. Said he to his companion," Is the songstress singing so wonderfully at 2 a.m.?" The companion said ," No. No. I don't hear anything. "The Founder said," What not ? Just sit on this wooden seat and hear. "The companion sat on the wooden seat . He was surprised," Yes. Yes. What a wonder is this. "So very beautiful music. She has never sung like this. "To be more sure the Founder asked his companion what was the tune. He said, "It is Lalit Pancham." Founder danced with joy. Both ran outside to see if the songstress was in her spirits singing her best. What is there? Pitch dark. No door or window open, none awake, all asleep.
The Founder and companion returned . Founder said," Let me see if I still hear. He sat on the seat. The music was going on. He got up and asked the companion to sit. The latter spoke with joy. ," The very same Lalit Pancham but now its further higher note. ". Founder again ran, though this time the companion did not accompany. It was all dark in the songstress place. After some devotional talks they both slept. The light was extinguished. A few minutes after, they heard a burst of laughter. That was second wonder during the night.
The Founder wrote details of both experiences viz., twelve days ' confinement and celestial music , to his friend in these mystic experiences and was happiest when he had a reply : " Mother is fondlingly playing with you. The second experience is only making amends for the first. You were burnt with scorches for twelve days as that was considered necessary by Mother. She has given you the sweetest music one can ever hear as the divine medicine to restore your mental normality. Nothing is impossible for Mother. She laughs with a burst, on seeing that still, even after so many experiences you do not credit Her with powers which you yourself have described in your books."
These two experiences kindled a desire in the Founder's heart to arrange for a personal contact with Mother in the fullest solitude. He wanted a place where none, not even a sparrow would be between him and Mother whether he was in communion with Mother . None should be able to see or know what he is doing , whether he is beating his forehead or slapping himself or weeping or rolling on the ground or dancing or playing or most endearingly talking before and with Mother.
There was gradual development of the Mother- Movement as a whole. The ideal of the outer form of the Founder's activities had arisen from that of a society of the Mother's Lodge. From a lecturing hall for the public with a private personal worship in his own home in Poona , arose the public worship on large scales.From the prayer-house of some few individuals came forth a Religious - Relief - Home, with worship, mantra repetitions etc.
Mai-ism says," No man that is born is perfect as God; but that does not mean you should lose your reason in the matter of deifying and worshipping and serving the greatest God-like men, with usual argument," He too is imperfect, just as we are ; he is a bit less, we are a bit more imperfect, that is all ". Great are great and small are small, even though great do small things and small do great things. Great men are to be followed in their great acts and no to be judged by their blunders.
The wise man who binds himself with ropes of devotion and self-surrender and prays to God and Guru to pull him upwards is never lost and sure to rise to the highest point in course of time and as speedily as it can be , so long as he does not with his own hands sever himself from the protective and pulling powerful ropes. Catch God and Guru , never to leave , come what may, that is the highest secret of success Mai-ism gives. Set no big values as to how you fare. The opposite pairs of pleasure and pain, success and failure , rise and fall etc., are sure to play their parts. Fix up your eyes ever constant on your relationship with God and Guru, and the rest will automatically follow.
Idealism and ideal living is no doubt the purest sublime-most condition , but there is the other force of practicality, which is co-existent and remains un-alienated. I refer to the constant struggle between matter and spirit. Matter so often weakens and subjugates the spirit. What is required to be done is therefore the gradually acquired proofness that is attainable only by being alternatively within and without the mud mire of worldliness for times without number.
As a parallel to the development of the outer form of the Founder's activities , it is interesting to note the inner development of his mental changes as he passed through several stages. Without losing his own universal-mindedness, he had to stoop to the greater utilities of a defined religion for all practical training of the people and making them interested in true religiosity. The substance of a religion must be there to churn out religiosity. To make people interested in sweetness , any substance, say sugar, honey, grapes, jiggery or any such thing has to be most familiarly dealt with. What substance would in natural course be selected , would be the one that the people to be dealt with are most familiar with . Because on leaving Poona [ Pune], he could not get the outer universal skeleton , he had to choose the most easily available and utilizable Hinduism. Not that his universal-mindedness was any less. And he turned to Hinduism. The universal-minded man took up Hinduism because he had to deal with Hindus. If he were in the midst of Christians the selected substance for increasing the popular craving for true religiosity would have been Christianity. Even now the doors of Mai-ism are open to all varied types of religionists. The spirit of the Founder's universality would take , say, the Christian or Mohammedan colour even now, if the followers in large wieldable and countable groups belonged to Christianity or Mohammedanism . To understand more clearly, Mai-ism is the sweetness itself or the true religiosity itself and not a certain substance or a certain religion. The abstract conception required a concrete substance. The substance however brought its lights as well as shadows. Mai-ism in its outer form became Hinduistic, although no opportunity was allowed to pass without awakening and maintaining the public consciousness of the requirement of " Universal mindedness "as Mai-ism's true understanding . The abstract conception brought in the substance .The substance brought in the shadow , the shadow brought the Founder face to face with people's darkness and blackness of head and heart , ignorance, utilization for selfish ends and exploitation. The Founder was gradually pulled by people to tolerate their actual 'below-mark' stage and was dragged to descend from abstract supreme devotion to the practical work of relieving the distress of the people , from advising Nishkama Bhakti to admitting the Sakama Bhakti , from a general Mai Sadhana to the same for one's own purpose, from people's grateful humility to their worldly business tendency and finally, from their fair and honest business attitude, to the worldly natural plane of easy cheating and exploitation even in the realm of religion.
The Founder had to descend , step by step, to meet people on their own plane , which was found to be lower and lower as the Founder went deeper and deeper into the bottom layers of people's natural plane. He however persisted because in any case , he was not for abandoning hopes or his life long avowed Mai-Mission work.
The more he came into contact with people , the more disillusioned he became about the real value of the so much tom-tombed religiosity of the Religion. He saw very little of a practical nature beyond passing liking or a taste and nothing like love for religion with sacrifice. Religious living did not mean a different mode of actual living . He saw hat even the so-called universal-mindedness of many was, on analysis, nothing more than a courteousness, a little tolerance , a little broad vision , a little goodness and a royal talk. That by itself could not stir up the inner soul.
In practical life universal-mindedness was only a negative virtue. It had its value because with many others the infatuation about their own religion and in some cases fanaticism were there as a contrast. By itself the universal-mindedness as he saw , did not mean much constructively , in the actual progress in religion and Religiosity. The Founder here does not refer to the highest meaning of universality , viz., seeing and treating every soul as one's own self. That is entirely out of the question in this world , at least the modern one , except for few exceptions who are in the world and not out of the world. The first descent from abstract devotion was towards the Nishkama Bhakti. The Founder went on being faced with bankruptcies after bankruptcies from one surpriseful unhopefulness to another. Going down he could not meet Sadhaks, who would be for increasing their supernatural accumulated powers for public welfare through Mantras , meditations, worships etc.; the average plane was still lower . Religion was found to have some faintest signs of being welcomed , on the Sakama Bhakti plane.The Founder went down and down and welcomed even the out and out Sakama Bhaktas resorting to religion , mantras etc., for a particular specific object . There too the Founder's hopes were frustrated. Few took up the devotional or religious permanent colour. People licked away honey and left the dry bread . Founder said to himself," Well I am more than satisfied if people remain contacted with religion even though that be for clear-cut openly declared purpose and only periodically." However the world was found to be shameless even therein in the lowest requirement , and even feeling grateful to God or Guru was found to be not only absent but out of question and question-barred. God or religion were found to carry no higher value than a stop - cock of a water-pipe to be turned whenever one wanted water.
The Founder would have considered himself blessed , if he had found the world at least at that stage of periodical devotion for a specific object. The world however showed still more wonderful varieties of lower planes. Discontentment underlying demands , and further, even wrathfulness on non-fulfilment of demands , so to say, dictated to Mother. The Founder permitted himself to be down dragged because in any case , he wanted the unwilling horse of the world to drink the celestial waters. He tolerated Religion being made even a matter of business and there too the world most hopelessly failed to be true to its words of recognition even after fulfilment of their specific desires. The introduction of business element murdered the last remnant of gratefulness. The world was found hopelessly poor in the matter of the very first requirement of true religiosity, viz., humility and gratefulness. If he had known the true value in 1932 , and if it were a matter of his own choice , he would not have dedicated his life to this fool's and mad man's work. The rub is there - " If it were a matter of his own choice. "
The Founder would be sitting in the Mai Prayer Hall ( 28 feet by 16 feet ) on an Asan ( Seat ) on the floor in front of his dearest Mother on a pedestal , exactly in square line with the image . The place has breeze from south and west and powerful lights are making the place bright enough for the humble devotee to be viewing Mother most minutely at intervals. The Founder would shed tears and pray to Mother to do any of the two things She pleased,"At least show me some faint phantom of success in my undertaking of Thy work or sweep out the last remnant of desire to raise the religiosity of the religion following world through Thy Mai-ism." Mother however would do neither.
The paradoxical position, in the matter of God's attitude, is simply a torture, although a spiritual one.What is the deepest hidden working underneath ? It is a play of God or Mother with His or Her dearmost devotees. They live their most intense life with Almighty, but the world as a whole remains practically unchanged, though with a temporary spiritual flood.
When the Founder would be tired to the last point, Mother would explain the paradox thus : -
Do you think it is the laying down and explaining certain best recipes of a religion, that can make the world happy? No.
Do you think it is ceaseless effort of understanding of truths, that entitles men to be happy ? No.
Do you think the world is unhappy and miserable, without its own evils and sins ? No.
All is delusion.
And yet know this, the secret of secrets. Enjoyment and Happiness proceeds from Relinquishment,to the extent you throw away things of the world. "Love alone is the Teacher of Relinquishment.Service concretises Love. They become happy who love and serve Me and whom I love.The claim to be happy finally rests on Love and Service to me and Mine, with devotion and self-surrender. Neither people can change matters nor you. What is people's highest self-control before Nature's urge within ? And what can our highest effort do unless I move the keys of people's hearts ?
"And yet the paradoxical position that you are weeping about saves the world and is the keynote of the secret working."
"It was true of every one that was, is and will be dearest to Me.There is no human working that permanently helps. It is only My will. The usefulness of all working of people, or God's dearest devotees proceeds from quite a distant irrelevant invisible thing."
To repeat, it is this : "Those who love and serve Me, My dearest and My children, will be saved."World as a whole will be run on the basis of its collective merit, but individuals will be saved." The rest is all Maya's befooling of mankind, through delusions of authorship, ownership, actorship etc., and misunderstandings through networks of causes and effects, distinctions and differences, mine and thine, etc.
" Millions have preached religion. Where is the happiness ? Millions have mechanically obeyed Divine Laws laid down in scriptures. Where is happiness ? The bestower of happiness is I Myself. There is nothing like any person's claim thereto in virtue of any well earned dues or any deservedness."
"The Lover, The Server and The Surrenderer to Me or Mine alone wins the highest victory of happiness." The rest is only a temporary mirage-like satisfaction and a passing talk, a word-froth, a speedy revolving of a motor wheel raised above ground; the meter would read miles but the motor stands where it has stood.
The Founder would jump up from his seat of meditation and lift Mother's picture and holding Her over his head , would say in highest jubilance ," Then what else have I been doing and preaching? " His brains would cool down with an overpowering sleep. He would again have the passion to continue Mother's work in spite of failures. He would say to himself ," Failures are no failures except in worldly eyes. Every effort itself by virtue of its being with the purpose of serving Mother and Mother's work is a victory by itself."
Catching Mother in Her highest joyful mood , he would gradually creep in with his prayer," Let my desire of seeing Thy name and the specified name of JAYA MAI repeated by thousands be fulfilled , for that alone can make he world happier, if not now, just before I return to Thee ; if not then, when I am disembodied and am more able to do Thy work; if not then, even after several centuries, through Thy selects."
The founder would be surprised and annoyed at the inverted arrangement of " First Mother and Motherliness, and thereafter the world and worldliness ". He would ask," Why should I be dipped in the worldly rottenness after having known the source of nectar and having partly sipped the nectar ? " When this questing was causing agitation, the Founder had the Mother's Grace of having the Life of Paramahamsa , made an offering to him by a Mai devotee in November 1949 at Madras ( Chennai), and there he found the corroboration . " First God attainment and then the world - entering ".
The ancient Hinduism has also accepted or rather taught the very same truth.What else in the meaning of Brahmacharya Ashram ? Does that not mean, " First God and then the world "? Did not that mean you enter the world after God-initiation and Divine Knowledge ?
Illumination is one thing.Conviction is the next higher thing; realisation is still a higher thing. And corroboration after realisation is yet a still higher thing. No realisation gives you the perfect joy without corroboration. You may dispense with a Guru upto the last end , if you are vehemently against having a Guru, but at that last stage of corroboration, the Guru is indispensable.
The Founder explains " conviction " thus. We talk of God as the Saviour of the most wicked. A stranger comes and threatens you with ," Is that true ? " You shiver ; you tremble ; you say, " We only hear so, so many have said so in the past." You seek out a way from his clutches , you walk out with a weak platitude , you yourself are overpowered with doubts. In the end it may well be said that you have a consciousness of having accepted a certain statement as truth with usual heard mentality. On the other hand , the realised man stands firm as rock. He has the courage , the conviction of any mother that would boldly say out , with respect to an altogether face-changed son of hers after years , " Yes. he is my son." That conviction is there because the son is a piece and parcel of hers . A certain truth must have similarly formed a piece and parcel of the realisation of the realised.
Corroboration. With greatest exertions you have reached Mother's Mansion. You have been sitting on the very steps of the Mansion. You say " This must be the place ". But yet it is " must be ". You require some one ahead of you to say " Yes, you are right. This is Mother's Mansion. ". Till then the realisation is not perfect.
In addition to the routine way. Mai- Swarup and Mai-ism declare and reveal the existence of the under-ground passage. There are no qualifications which are indispensable for an aspirant provided he has an unfathomable love for Mother. You love Her ; you serve her; you surrender yourself to Her, every thing including salvation is yours. That is Mai-ism.
The Founder suggests a special attitude towards religious questions , to derive highest illumination. We should not have attitude of summing up everything with ' Everything is the same ' mentality, nor should we have the mentality of " Everything is already with us ". Then alone you you will squeeze out the maximum joy of understanding religion.
Help Mother to make the world better and more happy. Not to retire from the world , but to help Mother in the task of ameliorating the world . Not leaving the world to it's own lot. There, there, is one of the permanent distinctions of Mai-ism.
There is quite an independent path of love . Love between God and devotees.It is as good as a mechanical law of magnet and iron, the iron piece may be rusted or brilliant , it may be anything , of any colour and any shape . It is we who mix up things. We jumble up the up the ideal of God as Mother or Love with God who runs the Universe, who can adjust matters to our advantage. How you fare in life and the world , should be entirely a foreign inadmissible matter in the said independent path of Love. The return of Love is love and not prosperity, power, removal of miseries, subjugation of opponents etc. ; Love means absolutely nothing else. The jumbling is there; don't jumble up Mother as Mother to Her child and Mother as Creatrix and disposer of Universe. You love Mother but in return you want the whole pleasure and wealth of the world. If you are satisfied of love of Mother towards you, your love and readiness to die for Her in itself is sufficient and is independent of all requirements . There only the plain and scientific law holds. You weep out of separation from Mother, Mother runs to you. She heals you up and your wounds in hospital; She bandages you. But , mind, She runs not necessarily to give you what you want and to help you out of your pitfalls. She runs to you to remove the pangs of separation. She too runs because She can't remain without running. " Loving Mother becoming Mother " That is the second unfailing divine law. Mother's mandate to Her highest devotees is : " Be Mother to all as I have been to You." Do you want Mother for Mother's sake ? Well , there your way is clear. There is an an dependent path of divine love , which does not make any other achievements indispensable. That is the innermost teaching of Mai-ism.
To return to our narration, all his friends and admires and Mai-ists hailed the idea of selecting a place where he would be staying alone with visitors , off and on. In actuality, he had leaved separate from his family since he began the movement in 1932. With his devotional activity, it was impossible for him to be living with his family. Some visitors may be honest, some cheats. Any one in distress would come to him at any odd hour.
Once at the one a.m. in the night in 1932, the Founder's door was knocked by a man of reputation . He explained his calamity. Someone was dragging him into court with a nasty woman-entangled accusation. He had to come for a loan of Rs. 500 at that odd hour. The Founder was never rich. He said, " I have no money, but I can move Mother to change your enemy's mind to be merciful." He agreed. He was made to lie on a carpet, repeating certain Mantras at the Lotus Feet of Mother, that night. He was made to fast for three continuous days and subjected to confinement in the owner's place. One of the man's friends kept a watch over developments and informed the Founder and the man. Soon a well known pleader was engage, as the next day a suit was to be filed. First day gone. The friend brought the news that the filing of the suit was detained as the antagonist had a high fever. Founder made himself bold to send word to the antagonist," Your accused has surrendered himself to Mother and is in my charge. You will not get free from the fever , unless you change your mind to be merciful." The man laughed away. Three days passed. The fourth day happened to be the day when the Founder was ordered by the head of his department to proceed to Dharwar for things to be kept ready for him for a meeting. He had promised the man in distress that he would do his best to take him out of the calamity.
The reader can imagine the double difficulty, the Founder wept Mother, " Why do you bring such a distressed souls if you can do nothing ? "
It was a dilemma. At 8 p.m. ( the train leaving at 9 p.m.) the Founder's door was knocked. In came a young man with fever just down, his beautiful wife and his wickedness incarnate mother. Founder adopted the sweet tone , welcomed them and with the speech of Mother , asked them all to be wise. The distressed was keeping his head low. The wife said," I have to say something." Founder told her ," I have no time.I have to catch the mail. I am already late.Is it anything more than a little evil eye , some joke or some little external departure from strict morality ? But should that have brought him to a stage of such a suffering by your retaliation ? "He mad a summary trial; said he to the distressed ," Prostrate to Thy mother here , and you mother , forgive him. Now he is your son. " He was obeyed and the bitterness was buried. Founder took Rs. 25 from his purse and gave that sum to the lady as Mother's Prasad; he did everything so hurriedly and flew away to the station.
He was late but the train too was late. Seeing the Founder coming up with Mother's picture reverentially held up in his hands , the mail guard opened an unoccupied second class compartment . He traveled all alone to Dharwar, talking with his Mother in the night breeze, till at Belgaum the worship previously referred to was conducted.
The Founder was a house-holder. He had neither advantage of a Hindu saint nor of a Sanyasin in the matter of public approbation. On the other hand all the disadvantages of being a house-holder were there. His religion was to serve the public and not to be worshipped and served . He was not rich. He had spent a good deal for Mother. to him the expenses of a son's marriage were nothing of greater importance than a Mother's function, if not of less importance. His pension has been decided to be Rs. 114 p.m.. hardly enough for himself and family.
The problem was a taxing one. But the more unhopeful the problem presented itself to be, the more determined he became to have his " Mai - Niwas ", for himself and his Mother.
With tears in his eyes, the Founder would thus talk to Mother, " Mother, Shalt Thou not condescend to live longer than myself , for world's welfare ? Well, if that be Thy cruel wish, we shall die together simultaneously and be burnt together , but we shall live alone together for a few years of my life ." His feelings described in his rambling language ( from his green diary 20-07-1945) :- From the worldly point of view , my wife and children are most unfortunate . Their husband and parent has left very little for them, as he was Mother-mad in matter of spending for Mother. He has neither the public support of the religious world, nor is public opinion in India so developed with free thinking and independence of action, as to make people come forward with money to help the religious cause which they actually hold dear. People are swinging between the old and the new religious ideals and I too am swinging between a recluse and a house-holders life.People cherish new ideals but support the old ones. For relief of distress , people come to Mai and for thanks giving and charity, they go to their old deities and ashrams.Mai will give a prosperous lift or avert some danger through a daily programme of Mantras and the wholesale responsibility of the Founder, but the donation will go some Mataji or ashram.The idea itself of meeting expenses by a system of donation or an institutional fee is quite foreign to me. My children are in no way responsible for whatever I have received or will receive for Mother's work.The property which I possess at the time of death is my personal one. All monies that I have received or will receive , is by way of Mother's Grace to me while praying hard to remove miseries of different types."
Any saint is after all a living man; he naturally has a soft corner for all that have suffered for him. He is however booked for different type of work.In course of time so many moths crowd round the light. A hillock is formed round the saint. The hillock is made all types of people.The saint himself does not wish a hillock be formed. The hillock is made of warring elements ; the strongest man has the chance of usurping the master-ship., not only of the hillock but the saint himself. The saint sees all the currents round him.Says he, " Oh, Mother, I never craved for a hillock. At least save me now. "It is a matter of repeated occurrence that the world never cares to know how a saint fares , but as soon as he brings forth something worth the name the world comes forth like a swarm of locusts to give him directions and to have the hand in the management of all affairs.
He had to decide his future line of working and living. He did not seek other official service.As a matter of fact he refused offers of appointment. He became full time Mother's servant from August 1945.
There were several experiences which made him to think that it was Mother's desire that a Mai Niwas of independent ownership by the Founder should be there .
Unbelievably, events took place as if Mother was arranging for the finance. One rich lady of Bombay [The lady was Mrs. kale - her husband was engineer] who attended Mother's Lodge meetings and came to Bombay (Mumbai) whenever he used to go to Bombay from Poona or Hubli, had her husband on death-bed.The Founder was called for. He went from Hubli to Bombay, prayed and gave every instruction and a daily programme of mental repetition, worship, devotion, spiritualised waters etc. He was told by a most responsible reliable nearest relative that if the husband survived , Rs. 5000 were to be spent in charity for the recovery. The Founder worked day and night, devoting two to three hours every night between 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. and the least hoped for the result was there by Mother's special Grace. What can be the greater reason than the lady's letter that by Mother's Grace the husband was alright and that she would not forget to make a handsome charity to Mother's cause, for the Founder to be presume that he was sure to get Rs. 5000 on the husband's full recovery ?
The Founder was extremely enthusiastic on getting her letter. He purchased a plot of 12 Gunthas immediately in Hubli for Rs. 2000. Founder believes that for every moment lapsing between a good -luck and thanksgiving, a man is an extremely heavy loser. He is without the protection of Mother.
[ Founder's experience s are very interesting. He was once travelling from Belgaum to Nipani in a bus. Bus would have several halts on the way.Just after the bus started from a halt, the Founder saw someone selling jasmine flowers. He asked the driver to stop for few minutes as he wanted to purchase the flowers for his Mother. The driver said he won't stop. Founder explained ," I am no ordinary routine worshipper. If you don't you will find your bus can't go after sometime.You shall have to bring the bus back." The chauffeur scornfully laughed. After some furlongs machine went wrong and could not proceed. The passengers all got exasperated due to delay. Said the Founder," I can make it run. You promise you will take me back to those jasmine flowers ". The chauffeur with grim faced agreed. Said Founder ," Well than, be all on your seats ". All passengers got in. Founder was in the front seat. Said he in a child -like way, : Mother see see the chauffeur has agreed to go back . Don't you want to be worshipped with beautiful jasmine flowers ? I will purchase the whole basket. I will worship Thee as soon as I reach. It is getting late. Now don't make delay. " Said he to the chauffeur, " Start ". The motor immediately, to the joyful surprise of all, worked up. Founder purchased the whole basket and reached the travellers' bungalow in time and worshipped his Mother with every endearment. He satisfied his principle of promptitude.
Once you have established relationship with Mother, it is your choice to set up the standard for give and take or postponement. Mother's speed to your call will depend on the intensity and impatience with which you offer your thanksgiving. Mother accepts and adopts standard which you yourself lay down.
It is serving one's own interest to see that the connection once given is not cut off.Every wise man must have before his mind , while dealing with religious matters and Divine aid , this fact viz., that such relations are quite delicate and therefor extremely tender as a flower , fragile like glass and quickly falling from invaluableness to valuelessness as a pearl. Further , we remain in the dark as to when Mother's Grace is withdrawn. ]
In a less than a week, since he had the information from the lady, he got every thing ready. The deed was registered . The land was demarcated. However the charity did not came forth. On the other hand reports were heard that handsome charities were made at several quarters. One day, the Founder had the money order of Rupees Twenty five with an endorsement in the coupon to the purport that he amount was sent by the way of the recognition of Mother's Grace for the husband's recovery. The Founder had paid Rs. 1000 from his own purse to the vendor and Rs. 1000 more had to be paid. The Founder's sorrowfulness and awkward position may be better imagined than described.
Just then, an extremely liberal minded , practically a relative , though of another caste, was staying with the Founder as his wife was suffering from tuberculosis. The gentleman of an extremely liberal heart had some experience of the Founder's powers. He had appeared for an examination; he had no hope. The first thing he did was to inform the Founder about it and to pray. To his greater astonishment he passed. He was now a big man. His wife was suffering from T.B.. He inquired by telegram ," S.S.L. suffering from T.B.What do you advice Meeraj or Devlali ?" Founder replied, " If you have faith in Mother, neither Meeraj nor Deolali , but Hubli. "The devotee took the Founder at his word and went straight to Hubli."
The devotee [ Pranjivan D. Dalal-Executor of Universal Mai-ism Trust ] with his wife [ Mrs. Sushila Dalal ] and a daughter were present when the Money Order of Rupees 25 was received. They could see the Founder's eyes wept. On their repeated pressure , the facts had to be explained. The devotee went to his room and returned with his cheque-book, he wrote Rs 1000 in Founder's name . Said he, " Kakaji, Don't be sorry. Here you are. Founder was more than liquefied . Said he, "Mother bless you my children". He turned with a forcefulness to Mother and began to speak in loud words, " Don't you see difference between men and men ? Remove this T.B. forthwith immediately. Now and now. " Founder closed his eyes and after a few moments told them ," Mother has been pleased to take away your T.B. You now proceed to Bombay and get your re-examination . Just as you tore of my anxiety with the cheque, so has Mother too torn off your calamity of the fell disease. ". The couple started the next day with greatest joy. Got the lady examined. She had no T.B. T.B. was gone forever.
The couple returned to Hubli, they proposed that the Founder should stay permanently in Bombay (Mumbai).This devotee proposed that a plot of 1600 square yards be purchased in Santa Cruz which would be enough for two bungalows, the front one for the Founder and the rear one for the devotee. A plot on Saraswati Road was purchased. The Founder was in position to pay off an advance Rs. 1000 for the plot.
He was determined and for only a small hut of matting and bamboos, if nothing better can be managed. He had the unflinching resoluteness of having any abode where he can stay with Mother in solitude.
This incident of T.B. cure gave a lift to the Founder. He was accepted with every reverence that a saint can command in Bombay. Were it not that the Founder had an established home in Bombay, it would not have been possible for him to settle in Bombay and construct his Mai-Niwas.
One more thing that added to the glory of Mai-ism was the publication of a long article in " Sunday Times " of Madras on 2 - December - 1945, " MAI-ISM A NEW FAITH " written by " a pilgrim" - a retired Goverment Officer. This is a summary of the article :-
" When we think of a saint, the picture of one in a saffron robes with a tonsured head come into our minds.Orthodoxy sets its face against any departure from rigid rules relating to even dress and behavior. But cropped heads , collars and ties, and pants and boots have come to stay in modern life and if religion can not be capable of existing with them, it is religion that has to depart.
Some time ago I had heard reports of a new saint in Hubli and his miraculous powers .On the night I reached Hubli, I saw a telegram which had just come saying," Child safe. Mother's Grace is unfathomable." Evidently there was frantic appeal from the parents to this live - wire of infinite Love for help with the result the telegram indicated. My stay with him was a unique experience. There were no rituals.It was all simple , but what a world of difference in the atmosphere of sincerity love and devotion !
His theology is simple. He realizes Love as the Supreme force and God as Mother. Mother and child relationship is the speciality. Mai-ism according to him is the Universal religion , or Mai-ism can take under its wings the followers of any religion without submitting the charge of apostasy.
Let me warn the reader that if he expects to find a saint in saffron robes, he will be disappointed. Instead, he will meet a person wearing collar, tie and paints, familiar with every body and looking like challenge to orthodoxy. The vulgar crowd can not know a saint unless he is accompanied with external insignia and hence has not spotted him. Luckily this is an advantage to the honest seeker."
The fact of the purchase of a plot was communicated to all. Madrasis were the first people that came forth each with a handsome donation.
Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER V
MAI NIWAS
The Founder retired from Hubli in August 1945. The wonderful speed with which things were progressing was giving him greater and greater assurance about Mother's Will. His heart was dancing with joy. He said to himself ," if such people as poor Madrasis were ready to spare one- third of their pay, he was sure to have the personal assistance of thousands from Bombay [ Mumbai ] , Ahmedabad and Gujarat so very easily. " The rich and religious and charity-minded Gujarat had known and tasted Mai-ism for over ten years.
The Founder had helped so many from so many hardships , such as none would like to be mentioned in public, most wonderfully and miraculously.
The Founder gets sickened when he reviews this question after his disillusionment about what the world in its natural constituency is. The less said the better. The Founder saw in one year what he had not dreamt of in over fifty-five years. The whole world changed as soon as he gave an utterance to his intension of expecting some financial help for doing Mother's work, which he had been doing for so many years in the past and which the world had enjoyed at the Founder's expense. People who had wept before him and whose tears he had wiped , began to talk to him as a house-master would speak to a door-beggar.
People began to talk about a trust and a committee. The Founder was agreeable to the proposal. Both proposals were placed before persons interested , but there was not a single man coming forth with any interest whatsoever, either to touch his purse or to move his hands and feet to go to another. Ahmedabad went one step further. Some-one with responsible life-status and education abroad argued , " Where is the need of a building for doing Mother's work ? Can it not be done on a Verandah ? " Some one would say to him, " If you had an idea of getting money from us to do the work , why did you not begin from very commencement to sell Mother's Grace ? " Some one would ask , " Since what date Mother has taken to begging ? Is Mother for giving or receiving ? " Some would say ," Your powers you have lost. They are all consumed ; if not , why does not Mother Herself give you a lottery ? " Some one will say ," Come on , cheer up. I am helping you. I will give ten per cent of my gains for Mother's work, on my getting money through your lips ". The master stroke was this , " If you have no money to continue your fads, why don't you be wise and sit silent in an un-known corner ? " Some would say ," Your egoism has not died. Who are you to say improve the world ? " Some had heartlessness of questioning ," What will happen when you die ? That is the most important question. " Some one illumined him by suggesting to him to give an undertaking to the effect that none of his family members would ever step into the place .
The climax was there when one of the Founder's relatives , on a Friday while going out for work, in his motor said in a threatening manner with the rights of an elderly relative to another," There is nothing more to think about or to do regarding him. He has already turned mad. Confine him in a room and give him two meals a day and keep all necessary arrangements for his bodily requirement . " This was said in the presence of the Founder and indirectly to him and both started out towards the city for their work. The Founder wept with an out burst of tears shouting to Mother, " My own nearest relatives do not understand me and have not even an iota of love or respect for my work of Thine ".
The motor which carried the relatives had a severe accident, although they were saved. The motor had to be sent for immediate repairs. In the evening, while returning in the repaired motor , they had a second accident. The motor was sent back for repairs and they had to return in some friend's car. On arriving home the younger relative informed the family of the accident details and with tears in his eyes , embraced the Founder and asked his apology, for the cruel words the eldest relative had addressed to the Founder. The elder relative indirectly joined the younger in his apology maintaining his status , but with every affectionate love.
The Founder would sit for nights , in the terrace of the place at Malad and would be gazing at the moon and praying to Mother. One night, he burst into such a loud laughter, that some of the family members come running to enquire why he was laughing. Founder said, " This world, Mother has made funniest enough to nullify the highest serenity . I was temporarily unhappy because I left the Mother's lap and too much trusted in the world and expected its sympathetic co-operation for my Mai's work. I have seen now the world in its true colors. But now I laugh outright ".
" Yes Mother has promised me . My desire of constructing ' Mai Niwas ' shall not remain unfulfilled. I am given a tip. I will do nothing from now by way of troubling Mother for Mother's Grace to remove the miseries of persons that approach me , without their promise to do something for Mother in return ; that something may be what they themselves decide. But nothing free from now except for the really poor. Mother has promised me . She will try best to give me prompt happy results in response to my prayers for the relief of people of individual cases."
The fact that he did not get money from the public was now taken by him to mean no disqualification. In the matter of charities, he had a vivid picture . Most charities were out of fear of God, or for fame , or for some whitewashing some black spot or for catching opportunity to widen business or for removing burden of conscience-sting.
The world has to be tackled most diplomatically. To spread one's religion , you should study other religions . Both these views look strange at first , as many saints have neither studied various philosophies nor been under the smallest shadow of wickedness.
When any saint is described as illiterate, that means , one : that he did not go through the regular schooling course; second : that those saints knew little about two penny matters .
The fact is this : if you believe in past lives , the saint has acquired those acquisitions through experiences in past lives. If you don't, he is actually born with certain perfections , or say supremely high faculties. Either way , the thing which people think as absent , being invisible, is invisibly there.
Saints have known the Divine Law and the eternal truths. They have accepted them once for all. Every detail of their living is guided with that wisdom of those truths. So to say, every action of theirs originates from the conviction of those eternal truths. Saints have evolved all their wisdom into their instinctive or super-conscious faculties.
The Founder for years together did not know what ' L.B.W. ' in cricket means. Once the Founder was invited , in a club, to be a partner in bridge. He was so much pressed that he had to say it out, he did not know the A.B.C. of the game . Some mildly smiled, some loudly laughed. One of them, a distinguished officer, saved his humiliation by saying, " He is not a bridge player, but a bridge builder for all of us to go to our God."
One night he was in communion with Mother , when Mother cooled him down ," Is it not what every religious man has stated that the world is full of wickedness ?" One educated man in Ahmedabad told the Founder in soothing manner," Did you know it for the first time today, that the world is wicked ? " Said the Founder ," No, but the extent had remained unknown. And that I have realized only now at the fag end of my life ".
The Founder came to the conclusion that Mother wanted him to work single-handed and single pursed. The only change was that when the world had turned the deaf ear to his request, Founder became more practical and, now in a way, opened his religious - relief - hospital. The Founder with his powers went on relieving different varieties of miseries working hard day and night for the success of persons that came to him, with clear understanding about their having some-thing to do ( whatever they liked ) to help him to be in financial position to do Mother's Work.
Founder experienced Mother's Grace from stage to stage while Mai Niwas construction was undertaken and Founder entered Mai Niwas at the mid-night hour of 4 MARCH 1949, all alone , himself and his Mother.
The midnight hour of the Friday night of 4 MARCH 1949 was a memorable moment. The Founder had not informed a single soul about his desire to enter Mai Niwas on that particular night. He had a strong desire to enter it alone , because he did not know how he would pass that night. He was sure something would take place. At about 11 at night , some Mai-ist [ This was Bro. Himmat Bhai Mehta ] came to see him came off on the Grant Road Station. He insisted on accompanying him ; said he would leave him in Mai Niwas and return. The Founder declined his company courteously, but the other purchased two tickets and got into the train. On reaching Santa Cruz Station, the Founder had to make it clear," You may go back. I want to enter Mai Niwas alone ." The man could not understand the mystic force behind the request and purely out of goodness beckoned a taxi-walla, saying he would leave the Founder and return in the same taxi. Before however the taxi came up , he had such an intense stomach-ache that he fell down. The taxi-walla seeing the miserable plight , turned and went away. The Founder most entreatingly said," You speak out you are not going to accompany me ; Mother will remove your pain immediately." The man said ," Yes, if Mother and you are insistent on that point , I am surely returning." Just at that moment the pain disappeared ; without any further words he ran to the station. The Founder was trembling within himself. This incident made him sure , something unusual was in store for him. It was two minutes to twelve when he reached the Mai Niwas door. He opened it. It was ground floor building with vast open lands on all sides , with the nearest building far away. It was a dark night. No street- lamp nearby. There was none to save if he was attacked. He reached for a candle packet and match-box packet at the spot where he had placed them when he last visited. They were not there. This made him his heart throb with fear. " What ? Has Mother intended he be labored that night ? " He stood on the Otta for nearly twenty minutes and then laughed outright at the idea how Mother extracts hymns and prayers from devotees. He made bold to get in the black dark near the Mother's picture , allowing the outside faintest light to relieve his fear.
The first experience of his life . The Mother picture was Kali like. He began to sweat. For the first time he began to get a different picture of his beliefs, " Was he all along under delusion ? Was the Mother Ideal only a making of his own brains ? In reality was Mother Kali ? Which was true , Mother appeared as Kali or Kali had allowed Herself to be worshipped and preached as Mother ? " He prostrated. He mustered up enough courage. He decided to pray as Mother and then reconcile both conceptions. sang he to himself :
Karuna Sen Abataka Badha , Karunasen Mili Mai
Karunasen Dukh Marana Ho , Karoona Chooti Na Jai,
Jo kucha Kiya So Tune Kiya , Men Kachu Janata Nai
Teri Tuni Samla le, men Japa Rahahun Mai.
" I have grown old , fairing with Thy Mercy alone. With Thy Mercy alone , I have gained Thee Mother. It is out of pity for the suffering world that I have preached Thee even inviting misery and death. Now I only pray that my pity may not get relaxed and Your Mercy on me may not be at all be diminished. Whatever has been done is done by Thee. I know not a bit of it. Your matters you take charge . I am only for sitting in a corner at Thy Lotus Feet all the while repeating Jay Mai ".
As he went on repeating these couplets , his fear was getting vanished ; his conviction was coming up : " Mother's one aspect was Kali " . More strange than both was the phosphorescent light Mother's image was getting. The image was gaining in light by his alternative repetitions of " Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai " and couplets , spreading brightness of 5, 10, 15, 20, and higher watts electric bulbs. He had tears of joy and relief. Said he," If you like , you be Kali to the wicked world . To me you remain Mother ".
Said he laughingly," You won't remain this phosphorescent light all the night. So I take you out. We shall be together on Otta." He spread the carpet on the Otta and went to lift the image . As he thrust his hands behind the image , his hands felt some packets ; he pulled them out and the match box packet. The Founder's suspicious nature did not leave him; he fell in the thought world of recollection to decide if it was not he who had by mistake put the packets behind the image . " Might it be that some one who accompanied him the previous night , wisely thought , some one would take them away from the window , so better place them behind the image ? "
As soon as that idea came , the last idea's coming synchronized with the Mother's light disappearing. He was sorry. He condemned himself for his suspicious nature. His brains began to recollect two previous experiences. Once there was light at one of the Bombay suburbs in a kitchen when he prayed ( referred to latter ). The other when in Vile Parle a blaze appeared from the altar. There were some more , as when he runningly passed through dark nights after mid-night , but there were lights which did not last longer than two to three minutes. This was in Ahmedabad , when one night he grew very desperate and left his house with, " This is Thy world and its response to Thy work. Thou and Thy world, do whatever Thy likest. I have nothing to do with Thy world today." As he went out in the streets , one after another, every fourth or fifth bungalow, right from Pritamnagar to Bhadra Kali, showed switching on off lights. His vexation turned to an outright laughter saying, " Thy highest pleasure it seems , is vexing me. Instead of switching on electric lights why not switch on the true illumination lights of every one that can help Thy cause ? " He got consoled and returned home. He also remembered and laughed at his folly, when he got wrathful in Ahmedabad hospital on Mother ceasing to attend on him, because he had suspicion."
He accepted this time Mother's decision. If after so much experience , I am nothing better than a street man, Mother is more than justified in withdrawing Her presence , or Her light's presence." He yielded biting his lips. Just as a child that has committed something wrong keeps complete silence and engages itself in some harmless occupation , wishing Mother also may forget or at least forgive , the Founder unmurmuringly lighted the candle and placed the candle on the nearest window and began to repeat " Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai ".
The terribleness was not yet over. A wind blew out the candle ; he saw a black figure looking through the window. Was it an apparition, a ghost or some thief ? The figure was moving. The Founder with tremulous voice shouted ,' Kon ' ; ' Who ' ? The reply was ' Kholo ' , ' Open ' The founder lighted another candle and opened the door.
The way which the stranger got in, gave the Founder reason to be sure , there was nothing like danger. The man got in, stood in front of him, salaamed him in a quick alert manner. When he salaamed , not only all the fear disappeared , but the Founder had a joy, he had perhaps a companion for the whole night.
The following conversation followed : " Who are you, Sir ? " Are you the owner ? " " No , The Owner is this Mother ( pointing to the image ). I am only Her worshipper and preacher. What is your name ? What have you been doing ? " " I am Gurkha. My name is Devasing. This open plot that adjoins your land is being built over. The Sheith has engaged me this evening , from next Monday. At about ten o'clock I decided, " I can go to the place I can call mine with a right as a Gurkha of the place ." So I did not wait and I came over. Sir, were you with some man at Santa Cruz Station ? " " Yes, Did you see me ? " " Yes Sir, The man returned by the next train; he had some giddiness. So you called and dismissed a taxi. I came by the same train ".
The Founder was full of wonderfulness and gratitude. Mother has arranged for his guard , just on duty and immediately after him. " Did you spend your time somewhere ? " " No , Sir, I was only following you. I was just lying in a corner of my own land. I saw first It was all dark. Then came a strong light. I thought there was electric light but some time after there was only candle light So I came to inquire ". " Yes. Were are you sleeping ? You can sleep here ". The man preferred to sleep on Otta.
The Gurkha turned out to be religious. He was paid a small pay by the Founder. He served the Founder treating him as master and Guru, practically till May 1950 when the adjoining plot to the east was constructed and occupied.
A palace and a rose garden kept ready by Mother, for you. This book is for swans. Mother likes to be surrounded with swans whose hearts will overflow with love, cheerfulness and gratitude , on Her showing such playful proofs of acceptance by Her.
The next day, the Founder informed all concerned about his having gone to stay at Mai - Niwas, stating especially to his outside Mai-ists that a great facility was now made for them in as much as , so long as he was not out of Bombay [ Mumbai ] he would be found all the twenty-four hours in Mai-Niwas and that none would have to go back at any hour for the reason that he was not at the certain place . He never stirred out from 4 March 1949 to 12 September 1949 when the taxi took him to the V.T. station for going to Madras [ Chennai ]. At Madras too , where he went fulfilling Mother's Command , he was for over a month in one house only, without having a single look at anything of Madras, except some four places where Mai Worship was conducted on grand scale. The Founder began to say to others ," If you want real peace of mind, true understanding and overflows of devotion, confine your body in a particular place , your tongue in the mouth and your eye-pupils within their eye - lids, as far as you can. Then alone you can have introspection, self-control and true understanding of Divine wisdom and super-natural powers to afford relief to others, as curing illness etc."
The first lesson which Mai Swarupa [ the Founder himself ] gives is : First create amplest leisure of time by withdrawing yourself from so many useless physical and mental activities. Humility, gratefulness, forgiving, pleasure of giving , truthfulness, mercifulness etc. these are the very first foundations of true religiosity. Next preserve your sexual energy. Third thing, you establish a saintly contact. Contact with God and Guru. If nothing can be done, see that you are for the maximum hours in a day, in presence of one superior to you in any realm, religious, social or even professional.
The Founder was for making the walls of Mai-Niwas speak for what principals it stood. In a poor man's way , he cut out important pieces from all his writings and graced the wall pasting these printed extracts on cardboards and nailing them on the walls . He further purchased a cupboard in which he placed all the copies he had and with bold letters put up a slip on the cup-board , " FREE FOR ALL : DEMAND ANY COPY ".
Just near the main entrance , he affixed typed copies of the following :- Rules and regulations regarding Place , Persons and Programmes :- 1] Don't pollute the purity of this place of Mother-worship and Mother's residence , by worldly talk, idle gossiping or business. 2] Your coming here must be for some specific purpose of dealing with Mother as , for Prayer, worship, Mantra, solving difficulties, true religious understanding etc. 3] Observe as much as silence as possible. Your talks about even the casual things with your friends should be in a tone of whisper and only when inevitable. 4] Don't seek forming acquaintances here or ask questions of self-interest or curiosity. 5] The only talk permissible here is that of God, Mother and Religion. Politics is strictly forbidden here. 6] Leave the place as soon as your specific work or programme is finished Don't waste precious time of yours and of others. 7] None is permitted to sleep here except servants and outside visitors coming for Mother's worship from Mofusil places and persons that are specially permitted for specific reasons. 8] No outsider who is not a known Mai-ist is permitted to halt here and the latter for three nights only and with his own arrangements for everything. 9] Everyone standing, sitting or stopping under this roof has to pass his time with best behavior and practically in devotional mood with strict observance of this Mai-istic tenets : - a) Spirit of practical sisterhood and brotherhood b) No distinction of cast, creed, colour, community, parentage , sex, literacy, position, status, means etc. c) Love in the form of reverence, helping co-operation, kindness etc. d) Activity of selfless service. e) Devotional approach and attitude. f) Unconditional cheerful self-surrender to Mother's Divine Will.
Re : Attainment of Mother's Grace : - [1] Everyone needs Mother's Grace at every step, in this tempestuous time. [2] God approached as Mother, is more suited for Grace as 'Mother ' is Mercy , while Father is Justice. [3] Speaking about worldly benefits alone ( not to speak of spiritual benefits ), Mother has wonderfully fulfilled desires of Her devotees. Mother is at their beck and call as She wants to teach Her sons and daughters the simplest, straight and speedy Royal Road to health, wealth, peace , prosperity and happiness, through the observance of the fundamental principles preached under Mai-ism. [4] The poor have become prosperous, patients of incurable disease have become healthy, lunatics have become wise , the homeless have built bungalows, the unemployed have become officers , unmarried have got suitable matches, marital disunions have been reconciled, connubial relations have been relishing, hearts breaks have been healed up, worries of impending calamities have been tided over, barren women have delivered sons, downfalls from great heights have been hurtless, business have flourished, litigations have succeeded, relief of solid help and entire removal of miseries have happened and many other miracles have happened on staunch devotion to Mother. [5] Persons desirous of attaining Mother's Grace should approach Founder for along chat by previous appointment. [6] Detailed study of ' Mother's Message ' and serious reading of ' Mother's Thousand Names ' will enable the aspirants to decide if the path and philosophy of Mai-ism will suit them. Truly religious persons will find Mai-ism to be most suited. People with unprejudiced open universal and straight mentality with modernized way of living, judging and believing will immediately accept Mai-ism as it does not in any way interfere with one's own ancestral religion and worship. [7] Once the aspirant feels to be in natural waters under Mai-ism, he has simply to climb up by leaps and bounds. [8] He has to make up his mind to set aside certain hours for daily spiritual work of devotion. [9] The Sadhak will be himself wondering at the most favorable happenings and at his spiritual progress. He will feel indescribable joy and beatitude-ful breeze of Mother's Grace. He will see he has some super-natural powers , is helped by unseen in every detail. He will be sure he is not the same person as before , that he has sublimated his soul. In a word, he will have a conviction that mother has showered Her Grace on him. [10] What is true for one man is true for another, and equally or much more true for a woman, under Mai-ism, as a woman has a softer heart , more suited for devotion and Mother's pity-invocation.
Regarding Prayers and Meditations Etc. : - {1} Persons desirous of offering prayer or practicing meditation should be pre-arrange details on consultation with the Founder. {2} Prayers intensely offered have been mercifully answered. {3} Prayers are to be for :- a) Legitimate gains only. b)Removing miseries only. c) Removal of sins. d) General smooth running of worldly life of oneself and family. e) Seeing and relishing and living the higher life , above money making and sense living. f) Enlisting oneself in Mother's service . g) Desire of evolution and emancipation, success in striving and struggling to go higher for introspective powers , knowledge, vision, devotion, meditation, renunciation, progress, peace , relief and happiness. h) Intensifying the spirit of service to all children of Mother and to Mother. I) Being prepared for unconditional self-surrender to the Divine Will of Mother. {4} Black-magic about harming or exploiting others results in Mother's Wrathfulness. {5} Prayers offered here for enslaving others or subjugating them to one's own will , have been treated most mercilessly by Mother. {6} No purely personal aggressive , illegitimate gains here. No exemption from sexual sin here.{7} Please don't forget that Mother is the Final-most-Mother ; God as Universal Mother ; Mother to every one of any religion or to any one who approaches Her as child with Love and Service to all her children, Devotion and Surrender to Her Will. {8} Noblest prayers are : - a) Let all be happy. b) Let none suffer from pain and misery c) make use of me , my humble service for Thee and Thy children d) Depute Thy devotees to successfully serve as saviors of this world of ignorance and sin. {9} Prayer for oneself is not most efficacious. Best prayer is for others or for Universal Welfare , as then, others will pray for you and in case of that failing , Mother will not wait for your prayers and will run down to you , for your relief and to help you, even before you pray.
Meditation : - This can be subjective, objective or through geometrical figures. Consult the Founder.
The following two descriptions , one by an interviewer when the Founder was in silent serious hours with his associates , and the other when he was in easy-going mood , may be read with interest. The silent meeting interviewer saw him at his temporary residence on Tagore Road, Santa Cruz , at about 8 p.m. on a Tuesday in 1940. He describes his interview as under :-
" The Master's programme on Friday nights is quite different from that of silent meetings on Tuesdays , when only the nearest people gathered round him. The Master was simultaneously dealing with about twelve persons when I entered the place , sisters and brothers. Here was a silent sitting , without a single person knowing or trying to know what was passing in other's minds , or between the Master and each of them, in the powerful authoritative language of silence. In the midst of a big hall, there was a swing on which Master was lying with pillows under his head and sides , with a hanging leg with which at long intervals , he was giving a slight motion to the swing. He ware a loosely tied dhoti and a malmal shirt which was never buttoned up. Each one that came in , entered with a pin drop silence prostrated and on receiving blessings took suitable seat wherefrom the face of Master could be seen.
"The blessings differed with every person. Some prostrators, he would at once raise up with a jerk, some gradually and slowly, some he will allow to continue prostrating for over five minutes. Regarding some , he would smoothly moves his hand over the prostrating back, some he would raise up with the catching and lifting up the chin, some by patting strokes, some by contacting their heads with pointed and forcefully placed pressing fingers . Some he would raise up by snip of fingers , some by slowly moving the hand over the forehead. No two persons were blessed in the same manner , which made it clear to anyone that the blessing method indicated person stood with reference to God Guru and one's self.
The raising by sudden jerk conveyed the idea to the prostrator " You have come too early." Gradually and slowly raised prostrators were conveyed that Mother's Grace on them was slow but steady and that they should continue with faith and patience. Continued prostration without the touch meant, the prostrator must severely repent for his wrong acts or behavior before he can be entitled to Mother's Grace as before. The hand contact by inverted finger nail strokes after a long bending , meant he was forgiven , but was warned not to repeat the wrong. Smooth moving of the hand on the back meant , full sympathy in the bereavement for which the prostrator was not responsible. The lifting by the chin meant Mother loved the prostrator like a child , although there was enough of folly. Contact on head means sympathy in efforts to understand analyse and set right the mental disquietude. The snip of the fingers meant cautioning against the very likely slip. Touching the forehead meant substitution of sublime thoughts for routine and rotten thoughts.
" Between the arrival and departure , and the prostrations and blessings , there was nothing but a silent pause and exchange of eyes and the respectful obedient demeanor. The spirit imbibing process began for each disciple with an earnest profound staring at the figure of the Master and keeping the eyes closed with meditation , except at long intervals , when the eyes opened for a few seconds again to close.
" New visitors coming for the first time were looked upon by the Master by a visible turnoff his deep-reading eyes, from the toe to the top.If the new visitor were proud of their wealth, knowledge or devotion, the Master would pamper to their vanity and dispose them off quickly. To the wealth proud he would say,' It is nice to talk about religion and to boast about Jnana and Bhakti, but the wealth possessor is the real Vishnu on earth. ' To the Jnana proud , the Master would say ,' Mere devotion is blind. Real thing is Jnana which you have acquired.' To the devotion proud he would say ," You have your Istha-devata in your fist. What a small creature am I, for you to have come down all the way ? "
" After one hour meeting silently dispersed. "
In the other case the visitor went to see him at Mai - Niwas in one of the evenings of 1949. He soon recognized the building, but to his surprise it had neither the augustness nor the silence of an Ashram. What does one find ? Out and out rowdism of more then a dozen boys and girls below fourteen , simply a noise, an indiscipline crowd of them.
The stranger had the courtesy of not going in straight. He could infer from all that shouting, running, quarreling , mutual chasing etc. was going on with the presence of some elderly person of that place who was simply seated on his cot as if he were deaf and dumb and lame. In the open spaces around the building , cows and bulls and dogs and goats and crows were in their full mischievous playfulness.
The visitor had a feeling of disgust. He said to himself , " What sort of Ashram is this and what sort of saint he is ? " The disgust abated after climax and turned to a scoffing curiosity of seeming things. Some boys were running up on the terraces. Some boys were simply switching on and off all the lights. The visitor was sick of the scene. His modern living mental set up of , " Who are you to touch my things ? With whose permission did you enter this place ? Don't disturb me . Get out . ", was overpowering him.
Just then, some cows and bulls climbed up the steps , made their way to the kitchen door . All were disturbed, the gangs were broken and every one of them, boys and girls ran away.
The visitor said to himself ," All are gone. I loose nothing in seeing the man." Suddenly he heard a musical voice singing. It looked the man was coming out. Out he came. He welcomed the visitor, " Come in , please ". The visitor stepped in. But where does the former inquire his name , place or purpose ? He turns to the image and sings. [ The Founder was Honorary Examiner in Music for Bombay Government. ]
" Bazuza Khairata Kucha Apna Nahi Hai ." ( Except charity absolutely nothing is ours. )
The visitor has evaporated from his eyes and mind. The man sings the same line over and over , with different modulations; his feet are with great difficulty prevented from dancing, by his own body heaviness.
Tears flow. He wipes them with the end of his dhoti. Feet loose all shyness. They joins the hands to make the music more beautiful. There is a choking in the heart. He weeps. He sits down. Gets up, applies his head to the feet of the image , lifts up the image , puts it back. The zazba ( spiritual effervescence ) is slowly coming down with the repetition of the line.
It took about 15 to 20 minutes. He ran into he bathroom, not minding the visitor , washed his face and came to welcome the visitor. " Come in , Sir ,Come in. I am sorry I had to keep you waiting. But I was helpless. " He effort fully composed himself , to be on the normal plane.
The visitor was lost in the ocean of spiritual emotions. He did not think of any formality. He could not raise his tongue to create a jarring noise to disturb himself and to pull his mind to the mental plane from the ocean of undreamt sweetness and wonder ; the wonder was gradually transforming itself to reverential worshippingness.
Said the Founder , " One Friday night, the last devotee getting up to go, found a thief concealing himself, caught him and brought him to me asking me if he should hand him over the police. I said No, and told the thief, ' to take away whatever you like from here. ' The thief was put to shame and was let loose. Except what Mother permits and enables me to enjoy, nothings belongs to me ; not even my own body, mind , heart and soul is mine. "
Pointing his finger to the Mother and unable to utter even a single syllable , the Founder could not hold himself erect and standing. He dropped himself down simply sat on the ground and began starring at visitor , speechlessly, as if busy with the work of sublimating and reconstituting the visitor's soul.
Jay Mai . Jay Mai. Jay Mai.
END OF PART ONE OF ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
SECOND PART
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER VI
MAI’S GRACE
The Founder's first residence in Bombay (Mumbai) was that of Parixit M. Rai in Santa Cruz, the second of P.D. Dalal in Malad and the third of Pramodshankar M. Dixit in Matunga. This P.M.D., a pucca scientist and atheist had wonderful experiences of Mother's Grace. He was suffering from an incurable disease. Someone told him," When you are fully assured the disease cannot be cured by any doctor, tell me, I will bring you a religious doctor who will surely cure you."
The Founder was taken to P.M.D. He could not pass stools without a painful crying for an hour and half. The host began thus," I do not believe in God and religion and all the humbugs going in the name of religion. In as much however as my wife and children have a claim over me, I do not object to following your any instructions. "His wife and daughter begged the Founder's pardon and entreated the Founder not to mind the impudence. The Founder said," You have no idea of Mother's Mercy. I will be here next Friday."
The next Friday, the Founder prayed to the Mother that was installed and performed his Mantras etc. and gave him water; " Just have a drink and go to your lavatory." Wonder of wonders. No pain at all. Atheism which was there for over forty nine years evaporated in two hours. P.M.D. asked, "What is the whole process working? " Founder said, "MOTHER'S PURE AND SIMPLE GRACE."
A change can - not be complete in a day. P.M.D. began to think in a way, that there may be certain effects of previous treatments, which accidently synchronized with his drinking the " Sanctified water ". He very respectfully and apologetically expressed his doubts. Founder said," Do you think you are cured ? Well then, report to me the results of tomorrow." The same old crying. P.M.D. was convinced that the medicine lay latent in the magnetized Lotus Feet waters.
P.M.D. argued there must be something like a phonetic effect. A certain sound may be attracting from the ether which might have the curing property. Founder said," What is the meaning of this obstinacy ? If you find a wonderful drug administered to you by a doctor of medicine , would you not believe in the story as to how and where it was prepared ? What is the meaning of your fabricating some argument based on imagination and dismissing the theory explained by the successful experimenter himself ?" P.M.D. decided to perform the very same things which the Founder did. The water did give a partial effect. There were repetitions of experiences. Founder's water had a full effect. P's water had a partial effect ,. No water sipping , the same old crying. P had already after a few days , turn to be a believer ; but still up till now, he believes there is something in the Founder himself and he does not go beyond the Founder, although he now admits the existence of God in an abstract conception. He would insist on holding," You yourself are Mai, you can do what you will; I have no proof for believing there is some higher power outside you and other than you working through you. I simply accept because you say so."
A combination of a scientific brain and a devotional heart is a rarity. Science and religion although seemingly diagonally opposite are right and left hands of, or the horizontal or vertical wheels of a compact a machinery, which serve humanity , and are both subservient to the Mother's Divine Will. The one deals with the grossest element of matter and the with the subtlest element of mind.
Founder had to stay at Malad and could not go to P.M.D. as often as required. P.M.D. suggested ," You depute your powers to my daughter." Founder deputed his powers to her for the period P.M.D. was ill. She was made to sit before Mother and the needful initiation and delegation ceremony was done. The disease was entirely cured within nine weeks - the usual time which Founder states to all.
There are certain peculiarities about the Founder, which are interesting. One thing is, he is extremely fond of mango pickles or pungent things. If there is a case of high fever, he would ask for hot pickles or for pungent chutney. As he would go on eating, at intervals, the temperature would go down. Once in Poona [Pune], Founder was called for by a sister who attended Mother's worship on Fridays; the lady said her husband had fever , their nephew was to be married at Surat and their programme was to start the next evening and they were to perform the ceremony. What will happen ? Said the Founder laughingly," Do you require to be yet taught the remedy, after personal experience ? Whole thing depends on the quantity of pickles you can spare for Mai ". The Founder returned home. In the morning he was informed a big pickle jar was received from G-sahib . Founder laughed outright and send a note to the lady that he would see that there is no fever at least till they return from Surat. There was no fever.
At Hubli, a high fever was reported to Founder by the mother of an officer. Founder replied," Prepare the nicest pungent chutney and send it immediately. " This was at 10 A.M. At 5 p.m. the mother came ; she said the fever was increasing. Founder said in a low tone ," What else can it be , if you can not send even two annas' worth of chutney to Mai ? " Mother said," What do you talk ? I had immediately sent it ". It was not received. The officer's peon had gone home intending to hand it over to Founder before night meals. Said the Founder," Well, you can't go now." He asked his cook to prepare chutney and began to eat it. He said to her," You are not to go till news comes from your home that he is normal." Very soon the peon came with the said news.
The Founder has funny ways. Whenever there is a serious case of disease , Founder asks for a beautiful note book with best paper and best wrapper. He would then retire in a room and go on writing what pleases him. The note book is not to be returned. His absorption in Mother while singing Her praises and writing them in the note book would be working miraculous there. Nine Fridays would be the maximum time .
Founder explains the whole working as under : - First of all , let it be clear that there is nothing in me. Mother has me only an instrument for Her own work. She wants that the world should be the world of Mai-ists believing in the six tenets, with all the secondary matters of religion only a secondary importance and considered almost dispensable.
Re: The working process : The installation of Mother is great thing in itself. Once the Mother is installed. although She may be ignored as soon as the calamity is gone , yet someone in the house would be taking a liking and a devotional relish and though in a broken and discontinuous way, the worship will have a more or less permanent footing in the family on Mother giving proofs after proofs of Her Grace. The Universal simple teaching of Mai-ism will spread gradually and the world will be better.
The Founder says," The highest human blunder is , people do not realize . Every smallest thing you yourself have to achieve by your own exertion. Nothing will automatically happen by itself." Founder also says," Do not expect higher things to come up without Mother's Mercy and Guru's Grace. On the spiritual path you need a Guru , whoever he be , who is deeply interested in your welfare , and in whom you have full faith. Let him only one step ahead of you. That is enough. The test of a solid Guru - Shishya relationship is how far Guru loves you and how far you love , confine in him and serve him. Guru does serve you but on a higher plane.
The process starts with the disciple moving the heart of the Guru to get a certain thing from Mother. The Guru does not know the disciple's innermost intensions or his worthiness and his place and part in the cosmic arrangement. The Guru knows everything past, present and future is a faith and not always a fact. It therefor may happen that Mother may refuse to give because neither the Guru nor the disciple knows what is good or bad for the disciple.
There are instances which show that while Mother is refusing a certain demand , She has been actually saving a man from a long sightedly seen calamity. The difficulty comes in because most of us are habitual shameless beggars . There is no end to asking and begging.
Here the Mai-istic outlook is different. Mai-ism does understand that Nishkama Bhakti is superior to Sakama Bhakti. The difference is here. Mai-ism does not call him a shameless beggar whose begging has no end. Mai-ism does not drive him out, does not spurn him . Mai-ism has the heart of a Mother. Mai-ism does not call such a person a shameless beggar, but a senseless immature child. It is easy for a college principle to select only first class boys for admission and show brilliant results. That is not for them, who want to see the whole world enjoys the benefit of being educated. Mai-ism believes in lifting the person at whichever stage that person is.
At the All Faiths-Conference in 1933, the Founder said," To the true Mother's son, murderers are brothers and wayward women are sisters ."
The Founder says, people as also preachers totally forget how practically impossible it is for anyone to leave off his desires simply because some preachers tell him," Don't desire. Curb your desires. Be desire less." Mai-ism takes an extremely patient view. It says," Children are bound to be so. Let them grow in wisdom. A time will surely come when without telling them you should not ask, they themselves will not ask."
Moving Mother to shower Her Mercy for a simple legitimate desire is often done by the Guru. Both Guru and disciple , sitting at the same precise hour , where they may be , repeat the same Mantra and meditate on Mother's picture. In synchronism with the disciple , the Guru performs the first part, but the second part of the Guru involves much harder work. He has to be annexing his mind with that of the disciple at one end, and the Mother at the other. He has to be the connecting link , with single pointedness and devotional meditation. The Mother acceptable efficiency of the second part, would depend on the true relationship between Guru and disciple . Mother's Mercy, Guru's Grace , disciple's exertion all three together bring forth a certain desired result. As to the remedies of pleasing God and Guru , the same universal Mai-istic formula holds good : " Love, Service , Devotion and Self Surrender."
Nishkama superiority and Sakama inferiority is a wasteful debate . None can raise above what he actually is by the stroke of a sound on the ear tympanum. We have every right to demand help and consolation from Mai , commensurate with our capacities and circumstances. Our requirement is to be true to Guru and God, with a determined living of " We shall develop in ourselves the Love Service Devotion and Surrender to our God and Guru and Mother's children , as far as we can." Have the cleanest notion, you have to go on reducing your desires and developing your higher joys." The Guru has to catch your hand and take you gradually over a mountain without minding your going astray on seeing tempting things. The Guru must just laugh at your weakness, but not spurn or scold. The Guru may fret but he has not to forsake , unless the disciple leaves him.
If the Guru becomes Mother to you in mutual relationship, and if you have every love for your Guru, it does not matter, you may be cunning, wicked, impure, degenerate and of perverted reasoning ; everything will be made straight in due course, provided you stick up, love, serve devote and surrender.
The day you have decided, you will love and serve your Guru and God,, the day you have decided , you will put all your cards before your Guru, the day you have decided, you will try your best, as far as you can to carry out his instructions and wishes , the day you make resolution ," Come what may, I shall not leave my God and Guru ", your name stands embossed in gold as in the winner of the race, some day.
We meet with some cases of people where, after nine successes, the tenth result, a failure , makes the whole undertaking a failure. The reason is that people think as if Mother's Grace were simply the wages of certain mechanical exercises. They don't bring in into calculations , their general behavior to others, their sanctity and purity. Mother wants to make your way easier, only if you are turning your steps towards Her and true religiosity. On the other hand the response of the Grace-seekers is not sincere and honest; they are waiting for the last item of a certain undertaking to be successful, for turning truant to God and Guru.
One would be surprised and shocked to find a marvelous change in them before and after, the success, in their dealings with all .The real underline fact in such cases is that the approach which seemed to be so very full of humility and sincerity and goodness was only a played part, with great artificiality and cleverness. They become temporarily religious as long as they are in the clutches of a calamity. Calamity gone , religiosity gone and remembrance and gratitude gone. In such cases, the Divine Grace and Help is later withdrawn. People trifle with God and God's help, and fail miserably. Their outlook may also be called extremely poor because they do not realize that they will be needing God's Grace , all their life throughout .
Please note the subtle most difference. You may demand and get much more than any other man, but your approach counts, how you look upon Almighty and what relations you have . Demanding and donating , is the most trivial part of the whole relationship.
The Founder is not explaining some intricate point. Intellectually knowing a certain truth is only a preliminary step. First you have to create faith in the truthfulness of the truth. The truthfulness must be constantly before your eyes. Whenever the corresponding allied situations of action arise, you have to exert, you have to pass through a continued practice of rising, falling, re-rising, ad infinitum, till you achieve mastery.
People hate things because they are new, as they disturb them from their inertia of their deep stupor. People refuse to stir up, because their is nothing new to break the centuries old monotony already known to them. People forget the highest truth namely, that there can be nothing new in it's absolute fundamental nature in the realm of Religiosity under the Sun, because true religiosity was born with the Universe.
There is no hopelessness for even over fondled children. Where is , in all realty , love to God and Guru , as of a child to its mother ? A child finds itself uneasy without the mother. Do you feel that ? You disown your God and Guru in no time. Some one asks you ," I learn you believe in God as Mother." You immediately get funky and said," All deities are same . They are only different names of One Final - most Thing. " You shrink. You disown Mother. You have not even the ordinary moral courage which a seven years child has , that says, " There, that standing in the green garment is my mother." The same thing regarding your Guru. Have you ever thought deeply ? You want your God and Guru to come in when you want and to disappear when you don't want them. Where is even the most elementary fitness ? The natural fitness of even a child to its mother ?
Millions of things have been stated and will be stated in the name of religion. If you like you may strike out the Guru . The only path of salvation is Love, Service , Devotion and Surrender to your God and that teaching is Mai-ism.
To return to the working, the process is the single minded prayer, meditation and appeal. The brain and the body must be doing only irreducible minimum things mechanically. Every thing must evaporate from the mind. The mind must become one with the all - comprehensive conception you have about Mother. The prayer has to reach a certain intensity. Your mind must reach the melting point and your heart, the boiling point. Grace - demanding is an actual work to be done to reach the boiling and melting points . It is only one syllable of your prayer or only one name repetition that secures the whole Grace-showering work. The main - most point is , that name or syllable should be from the mind that has already melted and the heart that has already been boiled.
The Founder is for sweating and earning the bread with hard labor with patience and perseverance. There is no ' Choo-Mantar ' . For hammering this truth on persons who believe ceremonious performance to be complete thing for worldly success, it is necessary to state here , that many Mantra Shastris have endearingly told the Founder that there is no greater power than God 's or Mother's Love , which the Founder is preaching all his life.
Guru-Shishya relationship is the very basic body and the soul of religious progress. At a higher stage , it also happens that your Ideal and Deity becomes your Guru , but anyway, you do need a Guru. There are stages in life and moments of weakness when only the Guru can help you.
You ask someone," Is not serving God's children a great act of religion ? " No devil will deny. But in front of your house, a man falls from the scaffolding of a building under construction. Some one asks your motor to carry him to the hospital. You have to choose between sparring the motor to carry the man, on one hand, and for your wife to go for her daily routine of prostration to the deity , on the other hand. There the difference comes. The Founder says, " You do not know serving God's children is also religion. " . People would say, " Do we not know such a simple thing ? What new thing are you telling us ? "
That service to God's children, has not been recognized as religious in actual living is a truth. In one of the Navaratra holidays, a relative of the Founder went out with a small daughter ( 8 years ) and lost her in the Bhadrakali Temple . The girl did not know the address of her house. She was sitting on the otta weeping hard and people in hundreds were doing their " Jay Jay Bhadrakali Mata ki Jay " in loudest shouts. Not a single man took pity on her. One however proved to be an exception. There was the greatest sorrow in the house due to the girl being lost. The philanthropic man brought her home. He was greatly thanked by the Founder's sister who explained to him the ideal of Mai-ism. The man, excusing himself while leaving , said, " I have lost the camel while going to save the goat. On this last ninth day, I have broken my vow of having the daily Bhadrakali Darshan. " Just then , the Founder returned after searching for the girl. Founder's sister told the whole story , as also man's regret. The Founder said, " You have absolutely no idea of Mother's Mercy. If you could not go to Mother, because you were engaged in serving a helpless child of Mother, Mother will come to you to give Darshan in the dream. " The next day the man ran down on the Founder to express his bliss as he had the dream in which Bhadrakali blessed him.
The first requirement for the attainment of Grace , is " SERVICE WITH LOVE " . The service may be physical, mental or financial. Service by a disciple means a physical or mental activity, labor, exertion and worry with the mentality and humility of a house hold servant to his life - long master. Physical serving of the disciple is that action , which he would not have done in the usual walk of life , neither for any other person nor even for himself , and which few others would do. Your service must be solid, unique and emergent . It must have 'thrusts' to your Guru and like the head thrust of the calf must make the cow to milk. Your Guru must be pained to watch the degree of your humility, selflessness and painstakingness. Your Guru should feel indebted and should be waiting , how he should make the return when you make the demand.
The Founder says, " I assure you , the very idea of the service rendered to any suffering person having a direct bearing with the pleasing of God is not there. Service does not stand religionised .Mother's ideal is religionisation of service. "
Returning to the matter of achieving religious progress, without the actual exertion of passing through an achievement , without not only devoting certain time money and energy but also temporarily considering the achievement to be only your only goal for the time being , and without a determination and discrimination, you can't progress even an inch.
Your relations with the world should be those of love , service, devotion and surrender , of course to the extent possible for you. Anyway the consciousness about the powerful influences of these factors must be there. Your desires should not be much beyond your worth , nor immoral, irreligious and harmful.
Your relations with your Guru should be that of love and service. devotion and surrender. As a matter of fact , you have to practice on a miniature scale the very same thing as you are later require to do with God. With full knowledge about your insincerity and exaggeration , the Guru loves you for all that, as you are on the line and are sure to reach your destination.
We are talking about Mother's religion. Tolerable insincerity even a little falsehood free from wickedness won't be useful in the Fatherly disciplinary school unless Father acts as Mother. Father in few cases does act as Mother, Mother has sometimes to act as Father. God as Father or God as Mother, means God that deals with us in a fatherly manner or a motherly manner.
Coming to Mother Herself , She wants Love, Service , Devotion and Surrender of a much higher order. Service as stated, is bodily, mental and monetary. Mother expect you to be worshipping Her and helping Her cause by money dedications in proportionate to your status or what benefits you derive through Her Grace.
A certain family in Ahmedabad [ matter of February 1950 ] doing business was in rack and ruin. Its trading agency was ordered to be stopped from March 1950 which would mean a winding up of a business giving a net profit of Rs. 25,000 a year. The head of the family approached the Founder and explained the whole situation. Said the Founder, " You prove your bonafides by offering Rs. 125 to Mother, before which I can't do anything because I have the worst experience of the world, after their work is done." A cheque was immediately passed. Said the man, " To be saved from my present situation , I want a loan of three lakhs and an extension of my agency and the cancelling of the order of its termination by the end of March1950."
Said the Founder," You pray like this, installing Mother." They prayed strongly all in one, the whole family, because , unless Mother helped , the family was going to be entirely ruined. None would advance even Rs. 50,000. All the property would be attached. In a less than a week, the German firm cancelled the order and extended the period to three months. Today's death was shifted. There were letters of joyfulness and thankfulness and thanksgiving with a heart of devotion to Mother . The whole family took to the devotion and Mai Japa " Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai " ( daily one hour programme for the whole family at night ). The agency was renewed still further up to December 1950.
Further, before the usual nine Fridays' time limit expired , the world was as I were overturned and a rich man of Bombay came forward to advance a loan of four lakhs.
Can we imagine greater mercifulness? Mother has helped families out of calamities, beyond imagination, only on a mere appearance of self-surrender to Her.
The merchant came down to Bombay , saw the Founder with his daughter, and a nice Mother-worship which pleased the Founder most.
If anyone approaches the Founder and tears, true or feigned , trickle from his eyes - finished.; Founder starts a new clean slate with the man. Even with a person, who had run away with his cloths and fifty rupees in his college days , there was noting in the judgment of the Founder, in re-entertaining him as a guest , because he expressed sorrow. Has any Mother discarded her son because he is stingy, or loses his head frequently, or goes a bit immoral ? No. Her work is to improve him and not gnash Her teeth, provided he has obediently, lovingly and servingly surrendered himself to Her. He is to be chastened and not forsaken. That is Mother's Love. He is to be punished, scolded, guided, but protected so long as he is Mother's and continues to be Mother's.
Once during college days, Founder was travelling in a train from Bombay [ Mumbai ] to Petlad. There was a co-passenger who had a basket of sweets , to be handed over to someone in Petlad. At Anand, a junction, the luggage inspector checked the luggage.; the excess was only due to sweet-meat package. The passenger lost his patience and decided to eat the sweets. The Founder intervened and said to the Railway inspector ," You are punishing him for his greediness. He will ceased to be good. He does not take notice of you or me. Let him eat away , but should he not give something to me ? I had given him corner to sleep. First decide my complaint. " All laughed. The inspector left. And the Founder made a note ," This life of ours is a gift or a trust given to us by Merciful Mother like this sweet packet."
Mother can set things in no time with a supreme command. But then where is the playfulness or joy ? Mother wants to enjoy the pleasure of seeing how people try to cheat Her, ignore Her. She tolerates our weakness but not our wickedness.
There are two issues : one, the abuse of Mother's Grace and to make Mother carry your burdens. An abuse of Mother's Grace results in most painful reaction. An educated man had wonderful experience of what can be achieved by repeating " Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai " attaching thereto a Sanskrit expression of desire. Several months later, the Founder had a letter from the man stating he had great bowels' troubles, viz., constipation. He can not leave the place without pain. Many medicines were tried but the trouble became a great handicap. One night while praying , The Founder got a singular idea," He must have troubled many while passing their motion." The Founder wrote to him inquiring if it was his play to disturb people during their natural calls . The man admitted he was often trying on people who would be going in and get his faith regarding the Mantra efficacy increased ", on their immediately getting out confused. The Founder took him right and left, stating that a similar experience might have led Gurus in the past to be reluctant about giving Mantra Vidya. The only course open to you is to be repeating the Mantra with an expression of repentance and apologizing , when any people are in ". He had to do that and was cured.
Any pendulum has the same amplitude on both sides. If Mai Mantra is much more efficacious than other Mantras, it is also equally much more punitive for its abuse.
The above instance of a childish experiment-making mind of one of that class of proud men who usually consider other people as inferior. " Others are not human beings " is the disease of the rich educated world.
The other instance was that of his own cook in Dharwar. The cook heard Founder saying to his disciples ," Mother will do anything for you; She will cook for you " , was alone for two days when Founder had gone to Hubli. He kneaded the floor , turned it into dough and closed the doors of the kitchen saying," Mother I am tired. you prepare breads." He went out locking the door and returned after two hours . He found everything as he had left. He began to abuse Mother, as he heard Founder was sometimes doing in his ecstasy. In the night , he had a dream , " Don't be a fool. If you repeat the folly again, you will suffer heavily." Partly with obstinacy and partly with a desire to finish the experiment, he persisted. After all, the Founder was there to save him. He repeated the same thing second night. He saw a terrible form and heard the words " Have you this cheek after I had warned you ? " He fell senseless and had high fever. He lay unconscious when Founder returned from Hubli . He got his senses after being treated and had fever for four or five days even after founder had prayed.
Saints advise transferring your burden to your deity in this sense : " Consigning all worries, dedicating them, dispossessing yourself about them, leaving them to the deity, not to be further thought about. ". There can be even a remote idea of coercion for immature people ," I am so much for Thee, canst Thou not do even so much for me ? Then, what art Thou far ? " That is coercion. This view is not impossible. Ask your conscience.
The idea is that of renunciation and surrender and not that of compelling the deity or expecting the deity to do your work or transferring the management of your worries to God or Mother.
Has any man achieved anything without labor ? yet how foolishly does he consider spiritual progress to be the work of a magic wand ?This delusion is due to people seeing saints being worshiped, remaining all the while in the dark about how much they have suffered. Founder is therefor insistent up on having each saint's laid down in black and white. Let at least Mai-ists wipe out all notions about Choo-Mantar mentality.
Your burden you have to lift and carry. Mother will only refresh you. The portion of work to be attributed to Mother has to be just by way of Her blessing your exertions with success. I have read imitation of Christ for times without number. When the above view was foremost in my mind, I came to a sentence ," Come to me all Ye that labour and are burdened and I will refresh you ." Mother may do much more , but you are not justified in expecting anything more than being refreshed.
Regarding the resulting benefit, spiritual as also worldly, we sometimes hear complaints from beginners about no progress in spite of continued devotion. On analysis some reasons are these :
1] People want to buy heaven out of penny.
2] Progress is not seen till water actually flows from a well-pump although water has been rising in the pipe with every stroke
3] Spiritual benefit of cessation of worry is not counted as achievement although enjoyed.
4] People don't differentiate between material and spiritual happiness.
5] Other people's happiness for comparison is pictured in imagination in ignorance of facts.
6] Some won't feel happy unless they happy in every manner perfectly.
7] Some have an extremely narrow view about the amount and type of labor required to achieve some solid progress. The whole difficulty arises from the fact that people do not know their real levels.
Whenever any one decides to be taking up the course of self-evolution, he usually commits the blunder of putting himself in a class much higher than his real one. His time and labour gets wasted. Just as there are physical limits, there are mental, moral, religious and spiritual limits. You can't go beyond them The difference is that physical limits are too gross to be enlarged where as other limits can be enlarged.
The founder classified devotees into nine groups :
1] Mai- Darshan -Bhakta = is just for casually seeing things
2] Mai-Prasad- Bhakta = is for small gains and company pleasure
3] Mai- Arta -Bhakta = is the actually distressed
4] Mai - Laukika - Bhakta = is a good religious honest , honorable householder.
5] Mai - Sadhana - Bhakta = is one with religious goal who exerts his utmost to achieve spiritual progress
6] Mai - Vidharmi - Bhakta = is one who having achieved powers, loses his balance with as swollen head and begins to slip with a retrograde motion.
7] Mai - Jivana - Bhakta = is an established fixed soul who lives his life with religiosity, in thought, word and deed.
8] Mai - Sharanagata - Bhakta = lives his life as self - surrendered, caring for nothing except the welfare of the humanity ; he lives the life as Mother's World Minister
9] Mai - Ananya - Bhakta = is engaged in nothing , except Mother and Mother's personal work and contact and communion; he is in direct relationship with Mother and has retired from service rendered to the Universe
The experiences of the Founder in the hospital at Ahmedabad, and in Hubli for twelve days are instances of Ananya Bhakti.
Sadhana requires a strictly disciplined life. The Founder insists on celibacy, harmlessness, non-acceptance ( Aparigraha ) , truth and food purity. A Sadhaka should never be under the obligation of any other man.T his Aparigraha is of the highest importance. He should always be a giver. Every evil thought , every lie and every injury done to others should be felt as a self-inflicted blow. Regarding food , never forget that each food element, that goes to form your body, head and heart, has not only a material quality but a mental, moral, religious and spiritual property, as well. At least let nothing go below your throat, which is not Mother dedicated.
Don't remain under the old delusion about the results of mechanically done Mantras. It is Mother that grants success, on being pleased. The results of your prayers are dependent on how far you are righteous, pure and benevolent and how far your service and sacrifice for Mother's children goes. All these count much more than your flowery language , correctness of pronunciation, richness of offerings and observance of spiritual details.
Highest devotion means simply talking to Mother , just as you talk to your mother in the kitchen on your way to your room with your friend to the purport that the friend is to dine with you.
If the definition of Religion as made by Mai-ism be popularly accepted , viz., that Religion means selflessness and love and service to all, the world will be much more happy than by knowing how the universe was created, how many hells and heavens there are. Similar questions do not go a bit to help the average man. Mai-ism says, leave all that to be taught to you by Mother. Your ignorance about these questions is no handicap to your progress or happiness.
The secret of Mai - Sadhana. Associating a certain Divine thought and interviewing the same with Mother's name representing that ideal, there must be repetitions of sublime most emotions till big bee-hives are formed in your heart and brain. The bees so formed by your untiring exertions will bite the inimical evil desires and thoughts. Start with an atom of faith, even though only as an experiment.
Another problem is , although we wish we may love and serve others, yet something prevent us. Then comes the realization of your enslavement to the six enemies within you. [ Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada and Matsar. ] Then comes the determination to overpower them. There after comes the tiringness of the constant struggle . Here come the higher joys and powerful divine spiritual help of the deities to their devotees. Then comes the question how to keep the deities pleased. Then comes the self - control and self - denial.
Enrich your bank balance of merit and Mother's Grace by repetition of " jay Mai Jay Markand Mai ".
Just when I am writing these lines, I receive a letter from a devotee ( 20 May 1950 , Kocharb, Ahmedabad , he call himself Mai Swarup Mugdha Shishu [ Mute child of Mai - Swarup ) : " On the night of 25 April this weakling of yours , after dangerously suffering from high temperatures, had difficult breathing with most complete symptoms of imminent death. All kith and kin expected what was inevitable. Only this mute child of yours was adamantine to refuse all help from without and kept on mentally chanting " Jay Markand Rupa Markand Mai , Marak Tarak Eka Mai " with the result he personally writes this thanksgiving . "
People like to be considered and called religious without being religious. People want proofs of God's Grace . When authentic instances are quoted , they will belittle those happenings or they themselves quote more miraculous cock and bull stories . They would never take the trouble of investigation and enquiry, and on the top of everything , persons concerned in the description of a certain experience , will not bear out the man who works hard at getting such instances.
During a calamity, a man is not himself, he becomes lamb-like, God-fearing and humble . God, Guru, Divine Law all look standing ready. The calamity over, he returns to his original self and wonders how , so very lion hearted , he had become lamb-like. It is only the good luck of few blessed to have a conviction about which stage was really superior. What a tremendous power , Maya holds over man ! But , all the same Mai-ism is very optimistic.
What is wanted is hundreds of repetitions and any man becomes surely much better than before, with pains, patience and perseverance . The higher the spiritual, and religious and moral stage and living of a man , the greater is the peace of mind , happiness and cessation of misery.
Pray, Pray. Concentrate. Be attracted to Mother. You will have attractivity in return. Make your environment happy by Love and Service. Make your inner self purer by Devotion and Surrender. You are many times much better. You will make yourself and all around you happy.
Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER VII
MAI THE FIRSTMOST AGITATOR AND FINALMOST EMANCIPATOR
To begin certain narratives, the Founder had an extremely intense daughterly love for a lady of a high family and education. She had so much devotion for the Founder that she did not mind the doctor's strict instructions not to move from her sick-bed and she accompanied her husband from Santa Cruz [ Mumbai ] to see the Founder off at Dadar [ Mumbai ] on his way to Hubli. It was raining hard and the train did not run. She was entreated by the Founder to return home , but she would not. Waiting from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Founder proposed to go to Sion [ Mumbai ] to another devotee and return to Dadar [ Mumbai ] .Founder went there with all. They were welcomed and immediately food was prepared. The dining place was dark; the electric lights remained " off " during day time. The lady expressed her obstinate child-like desire," I won't take meals in this dark room. If you want me to eat, it must be under those under those electric lights." Founder endearingly asked her not to be so resolute in a matter beyond human control. Said she," I know there is nothing beyond your control. I am extremely hungry. Every moment you are refusing us the light, you are paining me. " Said the Founder, " Mother , here is the foolish girl, but most dear to me. She has not cared for her health and illness. Let her be pleased as well, in Her obstinacy." As soon as these words were uttered, lights were there, till, the whole function was over. At the end, the Founder prayed and the light disappeared.
This lady [ Mrs. Sushila Desai ] had a friend in Baroda, a high officer who was severely demoted to a small assistant. The lady saw him at a saint's place and said," I will see you are restored to your original state . I am the daughter of Supreme Mother, in human form who can do anything and who can not refuse me anything." She returned from Baroda and was with the Founder, one night , eating away his brains , asking for a boon. Gradually she told the story. Founder did not yield till 3 a.m. and then promised," Alright Mother will see that he is re-instated within a month. " The whole question was re-opened after every hope was dead. He was reinstated.
The Founder had varied unprecedented experiences through this lady. Once, she told the Founder," You must learn Pranayama and Yoga ". Founder said," Have you lost your senses ? With so much experience, you can't understand the greatness of devotion ? " He went away leaving her house courteously. Some half and hour passed. The lady began to see everywhere in every room , every corner, every sofa, every chair, Mother, Mother and Mother. She got afraid ; she ran to the adjourning bungalow where Founder was residing, begged pardon and took him back to her place , to give him his favorite dish of pungent butter fried , bakery bread and mango pickles.
The lady would not do any worship, would not do any mantras, would not offer any offerings to Mother-picture. She would not wave the Arti. The only thing she had was the faith of the highest order. She remain practically in the constant presence of the Founder. She has been constantly hammering the idea, " You are yourself Mother ", and she is hypnotizing herself with the notion, " What he promises must be done . What was once promised by the Founder can never remain unfulfilled. ".
The lady one day asked , " You must raise my husband to be the manager of a concern and not merely an accountant as now." Of course the working in the worldly way was there. But he was able to start within three months a new concern which had as its telegraphic address " Mai-concern ".
The husband and son were both once in a trouble regarding the official management of an extremely serious order, though fully innocent. The lady exacted a promise and both were relieved of the embarrassing situation, all the destructive forces changing to be sympathetic.
Her husband was ill and staying at Juhu [ Mumbai ] in a rich bungalow. She would take the Founder from Tagore Road to Juhu and get his blessings on him and she would see him off at the station for Founder to catch his train to go to his office. Doctor said , he will take three months to recover. She told the Founder ," I can't tolerate this delay. You are cruel. If you heartily pray, the illness would disappear. " The Founder was made to promise that he would see that her husband attend office next Friday which meant less than a week. All said," If this proves true " they will be Mai-ists forever. Said Founder not knowing his powers ," Alright, I promise but don't blame me." On Friday he was ready and Founder took him to his office. It was wonder of wonders. The founder has been all along , dealt with like this, by the world, with a promise to be Mai-ist forever . His powers on believing such promise, grew supernatural. His ambition was to give wonderful experiences of Divine help through Mother's Grace and go on getting families after families praying to Mother. If she took up the Mai cause, that would be accelerated most speedily as she had rich relatives , was herself a cultured and educated lady and she had a moral courage and even boldness of an up-to-date England returned lady.
He however found the world to be too deceitful, selfish and ungrateful in general. Now, that he has the experience of the world full of cheating, he neither believes the promise, nor does he think himself justified in troubling Mother.
The knottiest point which baffled all attempts at solution was this : Here is a lady. She does not believe in worship and the usual things. She has only one qualification. She has a faith which has no parallel. She believes , " What Founder promises must fulfil." She does not serve him in any extra-ordinary way. She is doing only what any honorable host would do to an honorable guest. The only specialty is she remains practically in the constant presence of the Founder. What is the actual working ? For sometime he began to think about the Theory of Guru - Vakya -Sidhi. It means this ," If you have faith that your Guru is God and simply go on pleasing him , you need not have the same views and beliefs and living as he advises . You need not be obeying. Guru must be loving you and very generally wishing the desires be fulfilled without any special effort or concentration or prayer to Mother on the part of the disciple. Guru's promise and your faith that his promise would not go unfulfilled , are enough for any worldly success. " Founder felt there was some flow somewhere. The flaw was detected one day. It is this : The day, due to some reason or other, the idea of God-hood in Guru disappears , the whole fabric collapses ; and that is natural ; any Guru after all is human being.
Once she told Founder in a theoretical way of a mind : " Each one is a master of himself. Can I not do any thing in my own house ? Every one is God and God is within everyone of us. "
The most dangerous notion of every one being God is a senseless jargon for which Vedanta teaching is responsible.
At Madras ( Chennai ) in 1949 , an extremely strong Vedantist argued with me for three days ; he was so learned , he came with books and quotations. On the fourth day, I told him admitting defeat ," Tomorrow you come here with an agreement that you have transfer all your property to me. I am not different from you. There are no two souls. and this is only a question of transferring matter." He laughed outright. He said," That is quite apart. That is not relevant," that has nothing to do with philosophy." He stood and never turned up again.
Although the supremacy of " I am God " is not denied, the world will be happier by being taught ,' Thou art God '. That expression ' I am God ' is true in a particular sense only and at a particular finished perfect stage . If you are a true Adwaitist, with whom are you fighting , calling him a Dwaitist ? Adwaitism is an ideal though highest and not a fact to be exploited in your worldly dealings . According to Mai-ism , Adwaitism is a stage of consciousness which is superior to Dwaitism, but is no independent path by itself. It is a description of a certain consciousness and not a self-contained prescription to reach that stage. Adwaitism is continuation of Dwaitism. By experience one comes to a stage when the universe vanishes from the consciousness, when nothing remains except ' I am God ' ; later I vanishes , and even God conception vanishes . What remains is an indescribable Divine ecstasy and a perpetual blissful state.
Mai-ism says , " Nothing is unreal - Creation and Creator, happiness and misery , heaven and hell, deities and human beings , obedience or dis-obedience to the Divine law. So long as the soul has any relation with bodies and so long as one is affected even to the slightest extent , physically, mentally or spiritually , these differences do exist and are not unreal. Practically every one is a Dwaitist, so long as he has a body, mind , heart and soul.
Why not come to fundamentals ? What is the object you want to achieve by saying , " Everyone is God " ? Why not come straight to the requirement ? " You make no distinction between man and man, that will cause misery to any one and add misery in the world." " Love any other being and serve as your own self . Consider him to be like your own self. Try your best to forget every harmful difference between you and any other man. " All these teachings are sensible enough.
Mai-ism says the simplest thing ," You be good, loving and serving others because Mother Herself is pleased thereby and She will make you happy. For your own happiness, protection and escape from misery, you love and serve others."
First thing is the idea of Motherhood itself. It is the daily experience of everyone that a mother is pleased on serving her children. But the greater strength proceeds from the fact that love and service and universality, are the very first words of Mai-istic commandment, with highest importance given there to. That and Universality make the whole difference.
Why jump into a decision , ' World is unreal ' because there are a few men to whom it is unreal ? Why not consider the fact that even in the case of these blessed ones there was a period when they saw the universe as real. The universe or even individual soul is an unreal reality and a real unreality.
Mai-ism repeats," No mistaking of an ideal for a fact. " to the extent the difference remain to an Adwaitist, let him remove the incongruency by saying , " My idea has not reached the point of realization."
Don't be a curiosity seeker in the matter of mysteries beyond your limitations. Be ready to be taught, with the firmness of humility and duty , to walk in the Divine Path . Mother Herself will reveal to you as you advance , as much of the secret as is necessary for your further progress. Whom She selects that person alone can know and understand the secret, and that too only a fragment.
The mystery has to be learnt in the language of silence. You can rise above the imperfection of being troubled with doubtfulness and attain a stage , where the mind does not leave its bliss to invite uneasiness under doubts. That is the real stage. That is the real substance and the permanent work to be done. The meaning is , your mind reaches a stage when it neither raises any such worthless questions , nor does it care to know even If that worthless knowledge were imparted to you by any outside agency. I am not denying clairvoyance or telepathy or any powers of knowing past, present and future ; but for a Mai-ist, other things may be true but are not indispensable. To be knowing everything is no requisite qualification either for peace or bliss or salvation.
To the worldly man as also to the routine religious man, there is nothing worth thinking about in the divine arrangement in the relationship of any two persons. One moment , any two persons are pulling on well. Another moment they don't pull on. What is there to be thought about ? The subject is however is extremely deep , deeper than all the meanings of the known slokas of various scriptures. It is called YOGANUYOGA in religious language. Actual union or happening in obedience to the pre ordained union or happening. It is an unfathomable Divine arrangement that any two persons live together almost inseparable , so long as God desires them to learn certain lessons from each other. The moment the lessons are learnt, without any reason worth the name , the attraction sublimates and evaporates.
The highest teaching is through the Guru in the language of silence. The essence of the teaching is , ' ANNIHILATE THE MIND ITSELF. " At least , stop it from being perturbed with millions of thoughts . Acquire the perfect state of quietude where mind itself refuses to be disturbed from its absorption and dissolution in itself, Soul, Guru or God.
God and Guru both should be worshipped. Guru without God is nothing. God without Guru is nothing, though Guru is only an infinitesimal part of god.
To turn to the occult forces, it is love and hatred that rule the world and practically all the dealings of man to man. It is therefor that Mai-ism can afford to remain silent in the matter of the usual hundred of things mentioned in the name of Religion once the tendency of loving others is created . Love is attraction. It may be of any type. The world can surely make itself much happier by putting into practice the Mai-istic commandments of Love and Service.
During the Hubli period, there were other wonderful experiences. One lady came over to Hubli with her husband and daughter of twenty five , not getting a husband. They stayed for about five days. For one night , the daughter was made to lie on a mere carpet, before picture all alone. She was given certain Mantras to repeat. On their going home to Bombay [ Mumbai ], on the very same day, an England returned engineer made an offer to the girl, and the very letter which referred to their safe reaching at Bombay by the first post contained the gladdening news.
In 1942, Founder's Friend's wife lost her husband. The lady loved her husband so dearly that had it not been for the special religious treatment of Founder she would have committed suicide or turn lunatic. She would get dreams and visions of her husband. She [ This was Taramai A. Desai ] prayed to Founder to enable her to be with her husband by painless prompt death. She could not be consoled. Founder then used his higher powers ," Would you be satisfied if once only you see him ? You have take care of your children who are so young. " She insisted ," I will hear you only after you make me see him once. The promise was given : " You will see him during this week following Diwali." On Padva Day, she came to the Founder early in the morning. Founder said," I will begin my New Year with a forehead vermilion mark by you and then you go out."
She returned in the evening with great joy stating that she had seen her husband in Khar and he had blessed her with a smile from a distance and disappeared. She wanted a repetition but that was with great persuasion refused. " Do you wish to make him also unhappy " ?
When the Founder was transferred to Hubli in December 1942, she went to Bhagwan Raman Maharishi and Sri Arbind Ghosh and Swami Ramdas and finally came over to Mai in Hubli. There she was initiated into Mother worship and the whole Mother philosophy. She was given an independent room where she concentrated on her husband. She returned home after 3 or 4 days. For nearly three years it was continued process of an extremely scanty supply of oil to a lamp and constant care that the light does not extinguish. She was actually seeing and conversing with her husband . Founder was pressing that she had sufficient consolation with a sufficient period and that they must now separate. One night she did not come out of her room even up to half-past two. The Founder and her husband's friend were outside. The room was locked from inside. Founder broke it open. The lady was lying unconscious. She was brought to the main hall. At 4 a.m. , when she restored full consciousness , she told Founder with profuse weeping , her husband given her the last final good-bye. She tried and tried , but he would not come again.
The stage was something like tying bandages after a successful operation. The Founder made her believe , now she was acting inimically to his soul, by not permitting him to proceed further in his journey, as a free soul. Gradually the heart and mind began to restore a stage of maturity. She had reached a stage of evolution which made her a saintly soul . In worldly matters she restored a normality about all her duties.
The Founder accompanied her with two children of hers to Bhagwan Raman Maharishi , her own Guru. There her son fell seriously ill. Without letting the Founder know of it, lest he be offended, she went Maharishi and spoke about her son's illness. The son was getting worse and worse . At 11 p.m. of the night previous to the day when they had programme to start , she burst into violent tears and began to scold and taunt the Founder ," Being Mother, don't you feel ashamed ? Your heart is cruel." Founder asked ," What is the matter ? " She said, " What is the matter ! Have you no eyes ? This boy is dying here.". Founder said, " Why worry about it ? Tell me when you want him to get up and you sit me for Mother 's worship and Mantras. ". Founder took the medicine dose , sanctified it and both sat together to pray to Mother. Founder is extremely child - like ," Now tell me when do you want him to be alright. " She said, " What a joy it would be if we can keep up our programme of starting tomorrow morning ? It will be enough if the boy becomes removable by 5 a.m. " The dose was administered at 11.30; both sat out before Mother and repeated Mantras and at 11.50 , the boy shouted out, " Mother, I am free, I am normal ". There was nothing but joy. All returned to Hubli.
The lady had a further experience . Her daughter suffered from leg distortion. Many doctors were consulted. The girl who was devoted to Bhagwan , went there and stayed for months. No cure. One day she caught the Founder," Have you no pity over my daughter ? Her whole life will be spoiled ". Founder said , " I am seeing so many unhappy around me . Do you think I should go out of my way and say ," Come on , I will cure you ", to one and all ? Should they not be even approaching Mother with a humble request ? The curing process requires the faith of the patient to the effect that the Founder's word will not go in vain with Mother. Second thing is , the Founder's whole hearted desire that the patient be cured and third thing , the patient and the Founder to be most intensely praying . And all this , he is doing to spread the religion of his most beloved Mother. She must first have a belief. If she has that , I will cure her with mere earth. " The girl agreed to repeat the Mantra. The Foundations of Mai-Niwas was being excavated. The lady was asked to bring that earth and give a massage , repeating only " Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai ".The girl was cured in a fortnight.
What is the meaning of the preaching, " Rise above pain and pleasure, victory or defeat, benefits or loses " and so many allied teachings ? Some one asks, " Go on thinking ' Who I am '. " I have thought for full ten years. I am So and So, husband of So and So, father of So and So,. But I am where I was. Mai-ism says these teaching are not remedies in themselves. They are the most enchanting and deifying expressions and descriptions of high souls who have reached that stage. They are descriptions and not prescriptions.
" The remedy is something else " clarifies Mai-ism. It is Grace , Grace , Grace , Grace, Grace, Grace of God and Guru. Get the Grace and the rest will automatically follow. When a mother starts on a pilgrimage , does the child gets worried as to the food they will get and rivers and forest they shall have to cross ? You are not required to be knowing everything, for a Mai-ist, even anything . You are carried through every situation, provided you becomes Mother's child and that is Mai-ism. What can help you is the Grace and the easiest way of getting Grace is love, service, devotion and unconditional cheerful self surrender as Mai-ism teaches," Abhyasa " the practice , the repetition for times without number till the mastery is achieved is the most practical remedy. And Manan and Nidhidhyasan is the mental remedy.
One does not know when and where the mischievous she-monkey-mind will drag one and what she will make of him. This is a subject of deep study which helps the spiritual development by creating and overpowering conviction about the inconsistency and worthlessness of the world and by engendering a feeling of ' having absolutely nothing to do with the world ' . This feeling is what is usually described as Vairagyam ( disgust and dispassion ). It must be subtly appreciated that this feeling of Vairagyam , which on the face of it means something reverse of love , is in Mai-istic understanding, only the reverse side of Love - Love towards the eternal varieties . It is your love for permanence, constancy and changelessness, that make you tired of temporariness and ever-changingness.
So many people who go to other saints for ' Shanti ' ( peace of mind )have finally gone to Mother for relief of miseries and hardships . Mai-ism says , most natural thing for man is that he wants to be supplied. Mai is giver of Salvation and also Enjoyment of moral and legitimate desires.
Nothing matters provided you have decided to be better through God's and Guru's Grace . Highest Gurus are hard to find, but your severe and intense prayer to your Mother is sure to get you your Guru , atleast for the particular stage you are in.
The difference between a Saint and a Guru must constantly be before mind of spiritual aspirant. A Guru is one who guides you in every detail of your living in the religious realm, one in whom you can confide , one to whom you surrender yourself withe confession of all the facts and defects of your life and living .
Hold on to your God and hold on to your Guru, with the tightest grip, come what may, start your spiritual improvement from the very first alphabet. Even go back if you find a single element of yours unripe. In the end the tortoise will beat the hare and will win the race.
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER VIII
MAI: MAI’S FIRST MOTHER’S CHILD:
RAMAKRASHNA PARAMAHAMSA
The mystery has to be learnt in the language of silence. You can rise above the imperfection of being troubled with doubtfulness and attain a stage , where the mind does not leave its bliss to invite uneasiness under doubts. That is the real stage. That is the real substance and the permanent work to be done. The meaning is , your mind reaches a stage when it neither raises any such worthless questions , nor does it care to know even If that worthless knowledge were imparted to you by any outside agency. I am not denying clairvoyance or telepathy or any powers of knowing past, present and future ; but for a Mai-ist, other things may be true but are not indispensable. To be knowing everything is no requisite qualification either for peace or bliss or salvation.
To the worldly man as also to the routine religious man, there is nothing worth thinking about in the divine arrangement in the relationship of any two persons. One moment , any two persons are pulling on well. Another moment they don't pull on. What is there to be thought about ? The subject is however is extremely deep , deeper than all the meanings of the known slokas of various scriptures. It is called YOGANUYOGA in religious language. Actual union or happening in obedience to the pre ordained union or happening. It is an unfathomable Divine arrangement that any two persons live together almost inseparable , so long as God desires them to learn certain lessons from each other. The moment the lessons are learnt, without any reason worth the name , the attraction sublimates and evaporates.
The highest teaching is through the Guru in the language of silence. The essence of the teaching is , ' ANNIHILATE THE MIND ITSELF. " At least , stop it from being perturbed with millions of thoughts . Acquire the perfect state of quietude where mind itself refuses to be disturbed from its absorption and dissolution in itself, Soul, Guru or God.
God and Guru both should be worshipped. Guru without God is nothing. God without Guru is nothing, though Guru is only an infinitesimal part of god.
To turn to the occult forces, it is love and hatred that rule the world and practically all the dealings of man to man. It is therefor that Mai-ism can afford to remain silent in the matter of the usual hundred of things mentioned in the name of Religion once the tendency of loving others is created . Love is attraction. It may be of any type. The world can surely make itself much happier by putting into practice the Mai-istic commandments of Love and Service.
During the Hubli period, there were other wonderful experiences. One lady came over to Hubli with her husband and daughter of twenty five , not getting a husband. They stayed for about five days. For one night , the daughter was made to lie on a mere carpet, before picture all alone. She was given certain Mantras to repeat. On their going home to Bombay [ Mumbai ], on the very same day, an England returned engineer made an offer to the girl, and the very letter which referred to their safe reaching at Bombay by the first post contained the gladdening news.
In 1942, Founder's Friend's wife lost her husband. The lady loved her husband so dearly that had it not been for the special religious treatment of Founder she would have committed suicide or turn lunatic. She would get dreams and visions of her husband. She [ This was Taramai A. Desai ] prayed to Founder to enable her to be with her husband by painless prompt death. She could not be consoled. Founder then used his higher powers ," Would you be satisfied if once only you see him ? You have take care of your children who are so young. " She insisted ," I will hear you only after you make me see him once. The promise was given : " You will see him during this week following Diwali." On Padva Day, she came to the Founder early in the morning. Founder said," I will begin my New Year with a forehead vermilion mark by you and then you go out."
She returned in the evening with great joy stating that she had seen her husband in Khar and he had blessed her with a smile from a distance and disappeared. She wanted a repetition but that was with great persuasion refused. " Do you wish to make him also unhappy " ?
When the Founder was transferred to Hubli in December 1942, she went to Bhagwan Raman Maharishi and Sri Arbind Ghosh and Swami Ramdas and finally came over to Mai in Hubli. There she was initiated into Mother worship and the whole Mother philosophy. She was given an independent room where she concentrated on her husband. She returned home after 3 or 4 days. For nearly three years it was continued process of an extremely scanty supply of oil to a lamp and constant care that the light does not extinguish. She was actually seeing and conversing with her husband . Founder was pressing that she had sufficient consolation with a sufficient period and that they must now separate. One night she did not come out of her room even up to half-past two. The Founder and her husband's friend were outside. The room was locked from inside. Founder broke it open. The lady was lying unconscious. She was brought to the main hall. At 4 a.m. , when she restored full consciousness , she told Founder with profuse weeping , her husband given her the last final good-bye. She tried and tried , but he would not come again.
The stage was something like tying bandages after a successful operation. The Founder made her believe , now she was acting inimically to his soul, by not permitting him to proceed further in his journey, as a free soul. Gradually the heart and mind began to restore a stage of maturity. She had reached a stage of evolution which made her a saintly soul . In worldly matters she restored a normality about all her duties.
The Founder accompanied her with two children of hers to Bhagwan Raman Maharishi , her own Guru. There her son fell seriously ill. Without letting the Founder know of it, lest he be offended, she went Maharishi and spoke about her son's illness. The son was getting worse and worse . At 11 p.m. of the night previous to the day when they had programme to start , she burst into violent tears and began to scold and taunt the Founder ," Being Mother, don't you feel ashamed ? Your heart is cruel." Founder asked ," What is the matter ? " She said, " What is the matter ! Have you no eyes ? This boy is dying here.". Founder said, " Why worry about it ? Tell me when you want him to get up and you sit me for Mother 's worship and Mantras. ". Founder took the medicine dose , sanctified it and both sat together to pray to Mother. Founder is extremely child - like ," Now tell me when do you want him to be alright. " She said, " What a joy it would be if we can keep up our programme of starting tomorrow morning ? It will be enough if the boy becomes removable by 5 a.m. " The dose was administered at 11.30; both sat out before Mother and repeated Mantras and at 11.50 , the boy shouted out, " Mother, I am free, I am normal ". There was nothing but joy. All returned to Hubli.
The lady had a further experience . Her daughter suffered from leg distortion. Many doctors were consulted. The girl who was devoted to Bhagwan , went there and stayed for months. No cure. One day she caught the Founder," Have you no pity over my daughter ? Her whole life will be spoiled ". Founder said , " I am seeing so many unhappy around me . Do you think I should go out of my way and say ," Come on , I will cure you ", to one and all ? Should they not be even approaching Mother with a humble request ? The curing process requires the faith of the patient to the effect that the Founder's word will not go in vain with Mother. Second thing is , the Founder's whole hearted desire that the patient be cured and third thing , the patient and the Founder to be most intensely praying . And all this , he is doing to spread the religion of his most beloved Mother. She must first have a belief. If she has that , I will cure her with mere earth. " The girl agreed to repeat the Mantra. The Foundations of Mai-Niwas was being excavated. The lady was asked to bring that earth and give a massage , repeating only " Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai ".The girl was cured in a fortnight.
What is the meaning of the preaching, " Rise above pain and pleasure, victory or defeat, benefits or loses " and so many allied teachings ? Some one asks, " Go on thinking ' Who I am '. " I have thought for full ten years. I am So and So, husband of So and So, father of So and So,. But I am where I was. Mai-ism says these teaching are not remedies in themselves. They are the most enchanting and deifying expressions and descriptions of high souls who have reached that stage. They are descriptions and not prescriptions.
" The remedy is something else " clarifies Mai-ism. It is Grace , Grace , Grace , Grace, Grace, Grace of God and Guru. Get the Grace and the rest will automatically follow. When a mother starts on a pilgrimage , does the child gets worried as to the food they will get and rivers and forest they shall have to cross ? You are not required to be knowing everything, for a Mai-ist, even anything . You are carried through every situation, provided you becomes Mother's child and that is Mai-ism. What can help you is the Grace and the easiest way of getting Grace is love, service, devotion and unconditional cheerful self surrender as Mai-ism teaches," Abhyasa " the practice , the repetition for times without number till the mastery is achieved is the most practical remedy. And Manan and Nidhidhyasan is the mental remedy.
One does not know when and where the mischievous she-monkey-mind will drag one and what she will make of him. This is a subject of deep study which helps the spiritual development by creating and overpowering conviction about the inconsistency and worthlessness of the world and by engendering a feeling of ' having absolutely nothing to do with the world ' . This feeling is what is usually described as Vairagyam ( disgust and dispassion ). It must be subtly appreciated that this feeling of Vairagyam , which on the face of it means something reverse of love , is in Mai-istic understanding, only the reverse side of Love - Love towards the eternal varieties . It is your love for permanence, constancy and changelessness, that make you tired of temporariness and everchangingness.
So many people who go to other saints for ' Shanti ' ( peace of mind )have finally gone to Mother for relief of miseries and hardships . Mai-ism says , most natural thing for man is that he wants to be supplied.Mai is giver of Salvation and also Enjoyment of moral and legitimate desires.
Nothing matters provided you have decided to be better through God's and Guru's Grace . Highest Gurus are hard to find, but your severe and intense prayer to your Mother is sure to get you your Guru , atleast for the particular stage you are in
The difference between a Saint and a Guru must constantly be before mind of spiritual aspirant. A Guru is one who guides you in every detail of your living in the religious realm, one in whom you can confide , one to whom you surrender yourself withe confession of all the facts and defects of your life and living .
Hold on to your God and hold on to your Guru, with the tightest grip, come what may, start your spiritual improvement from the very first alphabet. Even go back if you find a single element of yours unripe . In the end the tortoise will beat the hare and will win the race.
Suppose you are in the hands of a cruel-most police-man who is on the point of handcuffing you and taking you away to the dark cellar , where suspects are dealt with.He calls a carriage, and with tears you are made to get in it. When all of a sudden, by Mother's Grace, your College Principal motors in and shouts out his ," Hallo, where are you going ? " What a joy would you feel ! You are saved. What a blissful and peace-and-protection-showering joy !
This was in fact the experience of the Founder, in college in Poona [ Pune ]. He had been to the Railway station to see off someone at the 3 p.m.Express. He was then seized by a detective who called out the nearest police. The Founder was suspected to be a Bengali seditious youth. The boy pleaded innocence and offered worldly resistance to his being shoved in with force, into a carriage. He was shown a photograph, in which a young boy's face was quite similar. Just then, when the boy was on the point of being pushed into carriage , in came the motor of the Principal in the station yard. He stood guarantee and both returned to the students quarters. This is an instance of how Mother was, as it were , protecting Her child, wherever he went. The greater psychologically important experience was however this. At the gate of the quarters , he saw his college friend, who was, in a confused , anxious and hurried manner , making his way towards the station because he had a dream in the daytime nap, and saw the whole scene which took place at the Railway station and his friend in the clutches of the police.
Founder says God is giving us proofs and protections so often, but we are all hopeless and ungrateful idiots.
The Founder began to see things as one would see on several scattered square blocks at sixes and sevens being arranged properly to form a complete and perfectly beautiful toy picture. He felt thrills after thrills, the like of which he never had before . What was being manifested in him was the reappearance of the nectar flow. We often have some scattered facts appearing as a independent facts by themselves , with no continuity and lots of gaps and so many small connecting links missing . As time passes and things take greater shape and development , we begin to see the continuity.
Mother, in 1932, through the mouth-piece of the Founder of Mai-ism in an independent course , although towards the same end , declared more forcefully, the indispensable need of a religion for the whole world to be happy under changed circumstances. The full-fledged man, the brief-holder, does not beg through crying and creating pity, nor does he rest contended with expressing his desires softly and mildly, looking into the face of others and ascertaining their pleasure or displeasure . He is not for saying, " I atleast believe thus and like this. You go your way." The man with every emphasis that he can command comes forth, claims his right to be heard and further demands his legitimate place in the midst of others and his sisters and brothers :
" Well, we are all unhappy. We have tried every means. Believe my Mother's word. You can't be happy without religion. A religion to be most efficient requires to be UNIVERSAL and much more simplified and based on fundamental undeniable Universal truths alone. Here, Mother being moved with pity, offers to the world , a Universal religion of God as Mother, Mother of all, propitiable with living the life of Love, Service, Devotion and Self-Surrender . Ye that find this universal religion to be appealing to you, take it up. Mother is there to guide you, protect you, save you and emancipate you. "
The religious progress of the world is less than even an ant's pace and that is so because we altogether forget the opposing and the undoing forces. We have altogether wrong ideas and wrong similes.We think mechanically in a routine manner and that is why we wonder why so much of the highest exertions of all the supremely powerful religious souls have not apparently borne fruit. The most patent argument against religion coming from the most intelligent ( but not religious ) persons is ," So many have come on this world . The world has remained the very same conglomerate of all wickedness, selfishness, vice, pain, sorrow and misery. " The Founder's answer to all of them is : " The world would have been much worse than what you see now , were it not for the showers of God's Grace from time to time ". There is no end to wickedness.
Our basis to judge and weigh the results of religiosity improving exertions and Divine Grace is fallacious. We take this vast Universe as a consolidated concentrated indivisible unit, whereas , the results are to be seen in the amelioration and even salvation of individuals. The caravan of the world passes on, but individuals are saved.
There is something like a precise stage of maturity for the world to receive a certain truth to be able to appreciate it and imbibe it. And we are looking at the matter under reference with that point in view; the maturity and the convenience for an undertaking and the favourableness and easiness expected for the success of an undertaking.
Mother thought the highest work of presenting the religious ideal of Mother - and - child relationship before the world , was more than satisfactorily done through Paramahamsa , actually living that life . He had done more than enough, to be further entrusted with additional work.
Swami Vivekananda had to do a good deal of clearing the ground, full of misunderstandings, prejudices, superstitions, well-froggisms and so many antagonistic forces and factors before true religiosity could take root. He found the world to be still immature for launching a new moment with the stamping of a religion. Seriousness was not there, and on the contrary abuse was possible. " The sentimentality of the devotee was as its highest. Some would fall into partial trances accompanied with the contortions of the body, whenever there was any exiting cause, such as devotional music. Many of them practically gave up the exercise of their common sense and reasoning faculty and waited in suspense for some miraculous manifestation of Paramahamsa's divine power." Swami Vivekananda foresaw the baneful effect of such meaningless emotion and set himself to stem the tide. " People feigned a good deal. It was discovered that these effusions were , in some cases, feigned and the result of rehearsals at home. "
The first need of India had to be first served and perhaps, therefore the Motherhood of God was temporarily shelved and he preached Adwaitism.
Here I should make it clear, what I mean by a belief in the Motherhood of God and ' Mother's Child '. In general loose twist-able sense , everyone is Mother's child. I don't mean that , when I say Paramahamsa was Mother's child. Our being the Upasaka of Brahma and not minding Brahma being called Mother , just as we call Brahma a Father, a Friend, or a Saviour or a Guru, is not to be taken as the same thing as being a believer of Motherhood. Again the Upasana of God's Maya or Shakti is not to be taken as the Upasana of Motherhood. No jumbling and no winding up and closing up and snubbing down the controversial point with a hurried stamping of ' All the same '. No assumption of a part for the whole or vice versa. God's something is not the same thing as God. " God as Mother " in words with a picture before you, only about Creator-ship, Rulership and Disposership of the Universe or Universes , is not to be taken as " Belief in the Motherhood of God ."
The test is approach to God, as a child to Mother. You may have some reverence and worshipfulness for all the conceptions and Incarnations and all religions and religious Founders. All that is very nice But the question of question is," When you are in every hardship, with no hopes of your being saved , when you are on the last stage of drowning, -- why, to be expressly clear -- when you are inhaling and exhaling your last breath, what is your God and relationship at that moment ? In what form, of what conception, and of what relationship with you ? If your approach then is that of a child to Mother, then alone you are a believer of the Motherhood of God and you are a Mother's child. " As what ", do you shout during your hours of weeping and drowningness, ' as your last refuge ' - is the test.
So many religious thinkers have used the word ' Mother ' but the conceptions are different and unfortunately few have made their conception about ' Mother ' clear. In as much as I am directly concerned with ' Motherhood ', I can not keep haziness about ' Mother '. One who lives his life with Love, service, Devotion and Self Surrender is a Mai-ist. I am extremely overcautious against the creeping in of the old degeneration of this Mai-conception. Mother Sitha between Rama and Laksmana , without whose Grace and going away aside , Lakshman can not see the face of Rama, is not Mai of Mai-ism.No repetition of distant most chance of mistaking Mai as Maya or the wife of Brahma , Vishnu or Mahesh. No Vamacharas, no animal and human sacrifices, no Possessions and no Delphi oracles under Mai-ism. No misunderstandings again. Further,Mother Mai to Her child, is Love of Loves, and Mercy of Mercies [ not Terror of Terrors and Death of Deaths ]. A cat's holding of a kitten is quite different from that of rat. Who can escape in the cat - and - rat relationship of God and man ?
Let us see Swamiji's mind regarding Mother. Founder came across Swamiji's quotations, " Real well-being of India will commence from the day, the worship of the Divine Mother will truely begin ".
What can be the idea behind ' Commencement ', ' Worship of the Divine Mother ' and ' True beginning ' ? In India , where there are hundreds of Hindu Mother temples, at every square in every city and village and where their worship has come down to us from centuries ?? If people have deep sense, it was a prophecy, about the new conception of the Divine Mother , the new requirement of propitiating and the new method of worship , which were to truely begin under MAI-ISM, that was soon following.
Swami Vivekananda had written to one of his disciples ," To put the Hindu ideas into English and then make out of the dry philosophy and intricate mythology and queer starting psychology, a religion which shall be easy, simple, popular and at the same time meet the requirements of the higher minds . A task which only those who have attempted it can understand.The abstract Adwait must become a living practice, in every day life. Out of the hopelessly intricate mythology, must come forth concrete moral forms , and out of bewildering yogism, must come the most scientific and practical psychology. And all this must be put in a form, so that a child can grasp it. That is my task ".
Does this not look like an advance proclamation about the immediately following MAI-ISM - a religion by Mother's child and for Mother's children - an east and graspable religion, a Universal religion of Love and Service ? that was the task which was attempted.
Let it be clearly understood that the teachings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, on being religionised lead you to Mai-ism independently arrived at, by Divine Mother's Grace.
Mai-ism does not beg strength from Hindu scriptures or from Shri Paramahamsa or Swami Vivekananda. Till 23 - 12 - 1949, Paramahamsa and Vivekananda were nothing nearer to me than say, Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu and Shri Jagadguru Shankaracharya. Paramahamsa has approached Mother as Mother's child, Swamiji was for " Aham Brahma Asmi - I am God " , " Mother, thou art everything ".
Next we proceed to the question of the importance and the need of religionisation of highest principles of life and living.There are many people who would admit, " The elements of God as mother, though in a different form are there already with us.Devotion and self surrender we have in ample measure.But where is the need for striking a separate off-shoot ? " Here the most practical thing should be stated. If you want a certain portion of population to be trained and to be gaining a unique efficiency, in respect of certain truths, you can not do that without a special segregated grouping. If you want to add saffron to a rice and milk preparation , you can't succeed with pouring in the un-worked rough ingredients in the vessel containing maunds , and going on stirring the whole huge milk-rice-pot. You prepare the saffron liquid as best as you can, quite separately and then pour it in and then pour it in, in the huge vessel.
The Founder says, " I do recognise the right of every religion to amendments and even substantial and even complete transformations. But so long as any such solid acceptance , confirmation and undifferentiated assimilation is not there what Mai-ism religionises is Mai-ism,. Although all three are extremely allied.
Why do we need religionisation of certain truths and principles ? Only a diamond can cut a diamond. Religionization has its unique value. A mere opinion of however a great a superman, is after all, paper directions and declarations. Once you religionise certain beliefs , principles, truths and customs and ways of living, entwining them round a certain conception of God , you saw a seed. It may take an extremely long time to sprout and the seed may die as well. But if at all it grows , it grows most wonderfully with age and time and gets stronger and stronger and for ever. Any truth that has been religionised , has its back, a tremendous wonderful divine force and faith of millions of men and of centuries as the religion grows day by day and age by age.
In the finality of the things , beliefs, pious wishes and words of wisdom don't count. Without the life of God being breathed in an intellectual skeleton, and a statue, all ornamentations of theories, philosophies have little substantial value.They are only nicest things to praise. Entwinement round a superman has its own time limit , although of centuries. God is God.
It is living force that works and that force has to be developed, trained and regulated as per certain conceptions . Religion is the supernatural force which ha sits unfailing Source in the Infinite and Eternal. Decades and decades , ages after ages , a large number of persons live their life in conformity with certain beliefs. Every hour and moment, thousands are thinking in a particular way and at the same time .Most huge dynamos are at work, generating certain gigantic powers to uphold those beliefs and to withstand any attacks. It is that force of Religion that work wonders.
A religion gives an immense power of exerting and suffering. There is the God's strength, an immortal hope and a terrible fear behind every act described as good or bad under religion.This, no amount of preaching by way of an appeal from any man to the intellect, experience or heart of another man, can substitute. A religion is under the constant grace and watchfulness, care and anxiety of the eternal God round whom it is entwined.
Paramahamsa was Mother Herself.Swami Vivekananda was Mother's Lion and very likely Mai-ism's Founder is Markandeya , the sage who formulated the events of Mother's Love to mankind. This poor Mai Markand can only say at the top of his voice ," If you wish to be saved , your last remedy is to approach God as Mother, whom you should believe to be Mother of one and all, and whom you should propitiate with love and service, devotion and self surrender.
Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai.
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER IX
MAI OFFERS MAI-ISM TO MODERN HINDUS
The Founder has expressed his views about what a true religion should be :
The task for a religious reformer is hard in a hundred ways.He has to make the world realise that it can not be happy without religion. He has to strengthen the belief both ways. Not only showing how religion has come to the aid of mankind, but how the highest civilisations not based on religion have been swept away, under the degenerating and decaying influence of time. For the modern age , a mere statement of his about truth is enough. He has to introduce the Universal outlook in every individual religion. He has to consolidate the wisdom of the past, extracting its essence to the irreducible minimum size. He has to establish proper values for essentials and non essentials of every religion. He has to minimise abuse and exploitation. He has to strengthen the cultural moral background. He has to lay down the best life routine. He has to interweave considerations of the world below and the world above. He has to open the World's eye to the same One life , animating one and all.
The religious ideal which can suit the modern world is one that can take the whole humanity in its embrace, which can respect and give a free play to Conscience, Reason, Experience and Science, which would allow every man to live well and teach letting others live well, which will ensure a perfect freedom for every soul to work out its own salvation in its own way, which will teach maintaining sense of proportion and proper evaluation of essentials and non-essentials of a religion, which would develop the faculty of judging all actions and actors, not by their positional values, but by the tests of the fundamental they satisfy, which would guide without intimidation and mental enslavement, which would make one free from the poison of the over-consciousness of superiority and inferiority of man to man, and lastly, which would develop the spirit of practical sisterhood and brotherhood in the daily routine of life.
A popular religion to suit the modern world should have the following characteristics :
(1 ) Religion must have a definite form and should not be an idealistic, incomprehensible, chaos-creating, airy and hazy something. Religion must provide for pruning from age to age.
(2) Religion should not be a source of superstition.
(3) Relation of man to man must be hundred times much better. Be we first a man, then a brother and there after alone, a religious man.
(4) Religion should be recognised to mean the essence and the experience of life lived.
(5) Every one should be, and should be considered under the direct protection and guidance of God.
(6) Preachers are to be Witness and not lawyers or professors.
(7) As few limitations as possible, should be set on the conception of God and on the innocent harmless and free latitude and living of men.
(8) All adornments and adjuncts should be gradually slackened and even removed, as soon as, at the stage when they are found to be obstructive , is reached.
(9) Religion should be accommodative, constructive and progressive. Religion must provide for pruning from age to age.
Mai-ism is the psychological religion for one and all of any religion or no religion without caste, creed or colour. With full reverence to and while following one's own religion, one can be a Mai-ist. Mai-ism is one's own personal religion to be adopted after the age of discretion and not merely one's ancestral religion of one's birth.
Mai ( Mother ) is not Maya or the illusion creator, nor Shakti or Power requiring a separate Controller, not Father's Wife, nor the Fifth Hindu Deity, not Mother Kali, not Mother Mary, not God's handmaid, not Demon's slayer, not Mother that is pleased with animal or human sacrifices, not Mother of thieves and dacoits, not Mother of rebels revolutionaries, not Mother of Black-Magicians, Ughra-Sadhaks , Ghat-Kanchuki Dev-dasis or Vamachars.
Mother is essentially the Ocean of Infinite Love and Mercy, Mother is human mother vested with Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence and raised to infinity and Godhood . Mai is to the Mai-ists what a human mother is to her child.
(A) Mai-ism is the psychological religion for one and all of any religion or no religion without caste, creed or colour. With full reverence to and while following one's own religion, one can be a Mai-ist. Mai-ism is one's own personal religion to be adopted after the age of discretion and not merely one's ancestral religion of one's birth.
( B ) Under Mai-ism, there is no place, by its very postulates, for the condemnation of Harijans as ' Untouchables, Woman's subjugation by Man or condemnation by routine religion as " Narakasya Dwaram "( Hell's Gate ) has no room, as every Mai-ist is expected to look upon every woman ( except his own wife ) as representative form of Mother and as under Mai-ism the co-operation of man and woman in the Mother worship is the highest spiritualising force. The spirit underlying the words " Heathen ", " Kafir ", " Mlechcha " " Durvan ", etc., has no existence under Mai-ism.
(C) One who does not believe in God, but who does believe in the common tie of humanity and practises service and extends Love to all, is a " Mai-ist ", because he is the follower of Mai in one of Her aspects as One Universal Soul, One Universal Consciousness or One Universal Cosmos, like unto the continuous string through rosary beads subjecting every one of the Universe to the slightest influence anywhere in the whole.
If the Universe is to be made hatredless happy home and if love, mercy and other qualities of heart, ( the bankruptcy of which has been so keenly felt in the present world ) are to reappear, Motherhood conception of God is the most favorable aspect and conception.
A universal evil need a universal remedy, and the Grace of Universally acknowledged common Parent of one and all. The Merciful-Mother-Parent. The Universal Mother.
A universal prayer offered to a universally-conceived, universally-acknowledged universal Almighty, has its own undreamt-of miraculous efficiency, which followers of individual delimited vision can never imagine.
A universal call alone can have a universal response.
The six tenets of Mai-ism are :-
1) God is more merciful when approached as Mother;
2) Mother is mother of all, without caste, creed or colour;
3) Mother smiles, on one's trying to love All, to one's best;
4) Mother saves, on one's trying to serve All, with one's best;
5) Mother shows (Her Grace) on one's devotion to Her
6) Mother serves, on one's living the life of universal Love and Service, with Devotion to Her and Unconditional, Cheerful, Self-Surrender to Mother's Divine Will.
Mai-ist's devotional ideal :
' Practice feeling that you are a child - a child whom Mother could not but accept, however wicked. You automatically get confidence, you regain your innocence, purity and sincerity and you raise yourself above world-wormness, sexuality and selfishness. You are off your cares, time is eternity for you and life is lightened. Be Mother's child and Her lap shall be thrilling and throbbing to have you on itself.'
BASIC BELIEFS OF A MAI-IST ARE : -
(1) Unity of all religions.
(2) Universal relation of all human beings as members of one family.
(3) No communalism. No provincialism. No nationalism and no racialism.
(4) For Mother's Love, Grace, Devotion and Mercy, the daily practice of universal sisterhood and brotherhood, an indispensable requirement.
(5) Every one to have the right of selecting one's own line of evolution.
(6) Precise evolution of essentials and non-essentials of one's religiosity, with test-stones of fundamental and eternal truths.
(7) Religion not to be permitted being made a cause for disunion, domination, prejudice, exploitation or superstition, and not to fail respecting science, reason, conscience, experience, human psychology and individual merits and demerits.
(8) One's own superiority to be least thought of, being trivial, transitory, circumstantial and not single-handedly earned.
(9) Not making most of little differences of high and low, which are often prejudicial and sometimes even imaginary.
(10) One's cheerfulness never to be lost as nothing is irreparable or unachievable under Mother's Grace.
(11) Be ever optimistic. The highest difference between man and a man is nothing compared to what Mother's Grace can make him in a moment. A sinner can be saint at the second moment and a saint may turn to be a devil after a day.
(12) Destruction is for re-construction, doubting for believing, evil for good, sinfulness for sinlessness.
(13) Rise above all superstitions .There is no 'choo-mantar'(magic) for a true Mai-ist except repetition of ' Jai Mai ' , Guru's Grace, Mother's Mercy, one's own highest exertion and world's sympathy.
(14) Mai-ist's highest initial grounding - Motherhood of God, Universality.
(15) Mai-ist's highest life-maxims - Love, Service, Devotion, unconditional and cheerful self- surrender to Mother's Divine Will.
(16) Mai-ist's highest sin - Loveless-ness and Harmfulness to another, by thought, word or deed.
(17) Mai-ist highest merit - Serving another onwards towards the spiritual goal or through temporal difficulties, in every moral, legal, legitimate and harmless manner.
Some of the practical measures for practical Mai-ists are : -
(1) Holding common prayers, Bhajans or Kirtans of God in any name or form and of any saints or devotees, holding classes, delivering lectures and undertaking tours for the general spiritual uplift.
(2) Introducing common prayers in Schools, Colleges and in masses.
(3) Holding Mother worship, personal or impersonal in any form, as may be agreed upon by one and all.
(4) Convening social of sisters or brothers or combined or of families, without caste, creed or colour.
(5) Promulgation of common religious and allied literature and encouragement of studies of all religions by individuals of different religions. Publication of extracts from sacred books of all religions.
(6) Helping poor or bereaved families, deserving students, orphanages, opening celibate Mai-ist Schools , starting widow-homes, offering medical aid to he needy, guiding wedded pairs to-wards spiritual matrimonial living, praying for the peace of the departing or departed souls etc.
(7) Promotion of immensely practical universal sisterhood and brotherhood in daily life.
(8) Abolition of racial , national, provincial, social and religious prejudices and intercession for bringing about honorable peace and equitable compromise.
(9) Constructing, opening or encouraging to open Mother's Lodges, temples, Homes and Colonies under any denomination religious, national or communal, of any people, in any place.
The process of evolution of Mother's followers on attainment of Guru's Grace and Mother's Mercy is as under : -
(1) Acquisition of merit ( Punya ) by doing religious acts , japa, worship, charity, services etc. which will lead in the first instance to the fulfillment of legitimate and moral desires, next to patience and proofness, and then to the appreciation of the virtuous, religious and saintly people and their ways of living.
(2) The actions and qualities of Love, Service, Devotion and Self surrender having fairly matured by practice, Mother will so bring about circumstances and opportunities that the follower will be lifted up from his routine and worldly life and will be ushered into the company of virtuous, religious, devotional and saintly people.
(3) Constant contact of religious people, and their Service, their Imitation and their Grace will create a good understanding of good and evil, truth and untruth, righteousness and unrighteousness etc. , and these will introduce one to godliness after sufficient practice and disciplinary training in goodness, virtue etc.
(4) This introduction to godliness will ultimately result in the great liking for godliness, virtuous, devotional, unselfish and higher living and finally in the germination of Love towards God.
(5) Devotion to and Love of God will perfect the true understanding about soul-knowledge and will bring the Supreme Self of God and the individual self of the follower much nearer, through faith and conviction strengthened by Mother, often through miraculous Grace.
(6) Love of God will result in the Love of God's creation.
(7) Feeling the finger and hand of God in all arrangements, getting the sight of God occasionally, feeling oneness with God on self-surrender and inward satisfaction of ' having been accepted '.
(8) Establishing a perpetual relation with God and helping God in all grand work with Power and Love which God is pleased to confer.
(9) Merging in Mother.
The Founder's greatest sorrowful observation is, there is no systematisation, although the richest substance of true religiosity is here in India. Right understanding in its absolute essence, sense and practice is hopelessly missing. Discretion and discrimination about the indispensable elements or significant and insignificant factors is conspicuous by its absence.
Hinduism is the most over fondled child of Mother. There is traditional story. There were two idlers ( brothers ) in the Ashram of Ramdass Swami , the Guru of Shivaji. They would be doing no duty, nothing whatsoever of the work of the Ashram. They would be simply sitting in front of Swami and go talking and praising, while worshipping , and doing all things that can be done without moving their limbs . Even during waving of the light , they won't stand up. All other disciples were getting wrathful and complaining to Swamiji. " These two never do even the smallest of the work and go on simply talking and eating. Swami tried his best to persuade other disciples , not to mind. But finally pressure was too great. They were asked to work but they won't. Finally , both of them were driven away with one day's bread.
They left the Ashram and sat under the nearest tree keeping their tiffin before them. Swamiji naturally inquired which place did they go. Disciples said," Where are they going ? They are just sitting under a tree with their tiffin before them. Just here outside our compound. They have not eaten their breads yet. "
Three days passed, the same story. Swami went there that night, all alone , with Kalyan, his best disciple and began to hear their talk unseen. Said one to another, " Today is the fourth day. I think Swamiji must come tonight to take care of us and take us back. "The other said," You might be hungry , you take our tiffin and my share also. You are hungry for the past three days." " But then, why don't you take ? Let us eat together. " " No, No. I have a conviction, Swamiji might have no sleep for these three nights. Should I be so ungrateful ? It is only a matter of a favorable turn of our fate and a suitable adjustment , which must of course , take its own minimum time . Some day Swamiji will get angry with their same disciples, because of his having no sleep for nights together , Swamiji will be chaffing because disciples are right in their demand . So he can't scold them , but the merciful milky heart of Swamiji won't leave him at peace, till he hears either we are , gone out of sight, and therefore out of mind, or taken back. " The other said, " I think , anyway he must come here at least tonight." Ramdas Swami laughed outright and disclosed himself. All the disciples , not finding their Guru, had followed and they also laughed outright. Said Swami, " These two are nice teachers of what ideal Self-Surrender and invocation of mercifulness, going beyond dry and stern justice can be. If all of you have no objection, I may tale back to our Ashram as best specimens of self-surrender souls ". That is Hindu mind. It lives in Mercifulness of Mother.
Propitiate God as Mother, Mother of all, with love, service, devotion and self-surrender. Let things come and go, as mother desires. Be busy with whatever religion you have , revere it, follow it, preach it, make necessary sacrifice for it. Act exactly in the manner all spiritually wiser than you do; observe it. Don't raise a discordant note. Fight, flatter, do whatever the world requires you to do, but only as hireling. In your heart of hearts , although your routine religion is anything, let your true religion be the simplest and the shortest , safest and smallest, speediest and surest Mai-ism. If you want religion of a one word , it is that of Sharanagati ( Self-surrender ).
Mai-ism maintains the full integrity of Hinduism as any other religion. Mai-ism only adds , one further requirement viz., when higher issues of universal welfare are under consideration, the individual aspect of each religion must take a secondary place in requirements of the all-embracing and all's welfare aspiring religion of the Universal Mother
Mai-ism proposes to give the free-est latitude to all in social living, so long as the fundamental Divine Laws are not infringed. One must be extremely alert and watchful, about the ground on which one stands and the nature of material he handles. His valour lies in doing his best to confirm and strengthen the ground and in making the handled material, very tactfully better. Neither contempt nor compulsion, nor resentment, nor dead routine can help. Constructiveness and not condemnation can alone take us out of the whirl.
Wise man have to accommodate themselves to the times to survive the overwhelming dashful violent waves , knocking down and smashing the shorelines. Sometimes a little promptitude in granting a lenient view save situations. It is better to be a less religious than to be entirely irreligious. If a certain sacred fire which has been for centuries kept alive with sandalwood only, gets famished and faded because no sandalwood offering come forth, should that sacred fire be not maintained by permitting less costly and burning materials ? Should it be allowed to cool down to ashes? No. Keep the fire alive. It will again see the original glorious day of Sandal-wood burning. These are crucial and critical moments. Better to give in a little than loose all. If the religious charm is retained , though weak, better time s of original strength are sure to return.
We are again in the line with the point of original aim and object of this composition. The final facts are that The Founder resides at Mother's Lotus Feet, confined within the four walls of his Mai-Niwas on Saraswati Road in Santa Cruz , Bombay except when he goes to Ahmedabad or any other outside place. He is a huge correspondent and believes in teaching religiosity, through correspondence and personal discussion of the smallest details of life and living. People go to him for spiritual understanding and he deals with inquirers in sittings lasting sometimes for five or six hours at a stretch , preferably 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. If none turns up, he would be praying and communing with Mother for these hours. His personal routine has been reduced to minimum.He would be found praying or preaching or writing letters or hearing the distresses of people and giving them instructions as to the ways of removal of miseries
Although in the finality of things , he believes man's highest exertion does not result in anything substantial compared to what Mother's Grace can do , he dis-likes the parasitic mentality and is extremely emphatic on the point of self-reliance , self-help and self-exertion. Says Founder, granting that you honestly believe you are capable of doing nothing, remain grateful, be busy with Mother's Glorification. Be helping mother to keep Her Universe and children - folk happy, honest , virtuous, God-fearing and God-loving.
These are these things that are expected of you, if you honestly believe that you can do nothing. One thing is : Be absorbed in Her and constantly meditating on Her. If that can't be done, second thing is , be at least be busy with activities connected with Her. If that too can't be done , be at least dedicating some kind of service , even though it be mechanical, either of your physical body, your mental faculties or your financial favorable position. If that can't be done , be atleast glorifying Her name and expressing your gratefulness to Her. This much on the side of action and activity. On the side of your thinking be humility itself. When you have to exert, you escape by saying, " Who am I to do ? What at the bast can I do ? " You put all your burden on Mother. When it comes to the realisation, you say, " I did it " and claim the full ownership of the fruits, without dedicating even a smallest fraction thereof, neither the credit of action nor the ownership of the fruit to Mother. Mentally renounce the very idea of your authorship or actorship or ownership. Don't continue the contact, not even the memory thereof
Let these three ideas be fully developed : (1) I am doer of nothing. (2) Nothing belongs to me (3) I am capable of doing nothing.
Mother is prepared for any compromise, but we are hopelessly out and out bankrupt in every way. Not even the mental expression of gratitude .That is most despicable.
Founder says, " This ' neither here nor there ' class of half baked shards of earthen pots is most tiresome, troublesome to deal with; and that the average modern Hindu is ; he is neither a Westerner nor an Easterner.He is neither an theist nor a theist. He is neither fully fledged Gyani nor an all-renouncing devotee. He is neither worldly nor an world-renounced. He is what he likes to be , as suit him best to serve his own self. He is crude obnoxious mixture of everything He has a love for material enjoyments as a Westerner. When the question of exerting therefore comes up, he is an Easterner and says, " We shall eat less but let us earn with ease and live God-dedication living ".
I so anxiously wish , readers may understand my heart. It is not that I am feeling joy in belittling the present age . Just the reverse of it. I feel for the average modern men. They are ten percent what they make themselves to be . I am not faddist of religion. Religion is for man, more than that men are for religion. The ultimate aim of religion is to make man better and happier. Nor am I worrying about getting a world of flatterers and courtiers around my MOTHER. I am all the while raising clarion call to all of them , whom mother has gifted powers to do their little best to take up the necessary measures to unable this world of ours , being reinstalled , on lines that lead it to be better and happier.
People do want religious institutes and preachers and advisers. Only thing is, someone else should have the idea of supporting them. They are to be merely receivers of benefits. That is in a way most natural with the original Hindu ideals. Religiosity or sacred learning gets poisoned as soon as the idea of money-getting or money-losing poison touches it.
Founder says , "When in the highest fervor of devotion, any saint hands over his books to a devotee ( and truly devotional is mostly poor one ), how can he wipe out every work done , with the poison of demand of its price ? On the other hand , a rich man that goes to him as a religious friend , to quote an actual instance , on being treated according to his status with a lunch costing rupees three, come forth to pay a two -anna piece , the normal price of a pamphlet, which he presents him with.His face is glowing with the idea," I would not take a pamphlet copy free as others do. I will straight way pay it off ", A rich man would be expecting praises for having paid off his two annas for the copy, although possessing lacs. What was expected of him was," Send your printer's bill to me for your next pamphlet ", or a cheque of a substantial amount for other publications.
There are several points of wrong mentalities, which the Founder had come across and which have shocked him on being smitten with the contrast between the talked - over and the actual religiosity.
A demand of some return for some great relief received from Mother, on the Founder's exerting hard and the consequent removing of some unbearable hardship, to be used only for the furtherance of an institute , or for assisting a religious person in his religious work, is called begging.
The logic underlying the mentality has been explained above : " Religious help is to be always free." Because religious work is invaluable just like saving of a drowning man, therefore is expected to be rendered and valued as valueless. What is invaluable soon gets depreciated to be valueless, if the feeling gratitude dies.
Founder says : You save a rich man's son from being sentenced, you see that a discarded daughter is received in her husband's home, you avert a danger of any disappointed person prepared to commit suicide by your constant day and night praying to Mother for maintaining his equilibrium. do anything, even helping a rich man to get over an incurable disease, or speaking in terms of money itself, to get thousands. Die for them, but a word about contributing to the sacred cause of religious furtherance is called BEGGARY. This modern mentality must change.The religious belief, once so very genuine and the mentality of " the saints oblige us be accepting " has erelong disappeared.
Please don't think this to be an outflow of a personal injustice . I am striving hard for a change in the mentality of the whole modern religious world. Don't be dazzled by richness of few counted saints. Study the problem deeply. A question from one of the worshipped saint's life will open eyes, " People came to see me in crowds and asked for instruction. People came and made me talk for three days and nights , without giving me moment's rest. They did not even ask me whether I had eaten ".
It must be said, this is quite an honest mentality which some few and not simply an excuse for not giving. Surely there are some that give with an honest understanding, viz., that the saints need nothing but that they must support them for their own " Punyam " and future welfare.
I am only explaining the embarrassing situation in matter of finance , for the new entrant in the realm of religion , as a reformer. In India, the agreeability of circumstances for any religious reform is this belief. Those who are Gadipatis and like Maharajas of the Vaishnava sect, never think of the advancing times . It is no part of their duty to help the world to being more religious. At best, their duty is to continuously play the same part, to them from the times of their forefathers.
There is another class, which is for dittoing the past and playing the same old gramophone records, blankly refusing to see look at the changed conditions and burning questions of the day. They live in the ideal world of the Vedas, Gitas and Puranas and refuse to descend even one step to study the actual step of facts and try to solve the perplexing questions of the modern life . this class is fairly rich, but it prefers idealisms.
There is still another class of high religious souls, who believe in fearful awe-inspiring distance , silence and unapproachability. To have a darshan would be more than enough to make a man perfect - the breath-blowing class.
Inferior values we are not referring to. There is a class, which consists of some living on the superstitions and fears of human nature , some of the avariciousness , some on religious ignorance of the rich educated class that has left all contact with religious routine, some on the blind faith of the illiterates etc.
It has been often put forth as an argument that India is poor.This argument is simple nonsense. If we judge the charitableness on the basis of percentage , where is the question of poverty ? Do westernized Hindu not know that in America religious lectures are actually paid for ? Formerly, people and public loved to serve religion. There was an innocent pride of greatness in helping religion, there was a belief , charity would bring more money, peace and happiness. So, there , a change is required to be brought about.
Is the world going to stop its working, even if there is not a single man on earth who believe in God ? Don't worry on that score. Mother's Message of Mai-ism says on the very first page , " Mai-ism is one's own personal religion to be adopted after the age of discretion and not one's ancestral religion by birth. " [ PAGE 143 TO 145 ]
Late Bro. A.S. Mundkur who has translated " Founder's Psalms " had become a Mai-ist in an extremely interestingly way. The Founder and Mr. Mundkur were together for only an official duty, for five days.The Founder had gone to scrutinize his 'award' of acquired lands . They stayed in adjoining blocks the Nipani Travellers' bungalow. One Friday night Mr. M entered F's room and expressed his greatest surprise on finding him sitting before Mai's picture in worship. " What do I see ! Do you believe in Religion after so much learning and free thinking and contact with up-to-date things.? I hate religion.The greatest humbug that has worked horrors on the world." F was equally staggered at such a contempt.Both were pulled into a serious discussion . M let loose his contempt in never stopping mail trains about weakness and abuse points of Hinduism.He won't stop to hear a counter reply. After he had finished , Founder cool-mindedly told him," You are right in whatever imputations you have made but let me have my say. Is there any God or not ? " "Yes, but not.... ". " Do you think for smooth running of the world, there must be some law ? " " Surely but not such a foolish.... " " Suppose you are the legislator, what would you have laid down ?"" Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing, only live without hurting others , with Love . Help others as best as you can with Service. Remember your Creator, who has created such a happy , beautiful and man-serving world and live always cheerfully , taking life as it comes ".
The F asked ," If the religion means this ? " M got wrathfully wild : " Don't try to pull me. I am not a child. I am fifty-two my friend . I have studied all religions and have had long discussions with Swamis, Moulvis and Reverends ". F smiled to bring M's wrathfulness down. But supposing some religion means what you say ". " I know there is none ". " Suppose such new religion comes forth ! " In a respectful but convinced manner, he began to leave the room saying with the highest emphasis, ' Impossible ' . F told him he had to go that night to Belgaum to conduct a worship. M was too generous and offered his car for a distance over 30 miles and back. He smiled and taunted F with a pleasant vengeance . " Please excuse me. I am impersonally telling you. That is my religion, to save your immense travelling trouble by giving you my car. ". He could not contain and repeated " That is my religion ". Not going to temple but sparing one's car for carrying a cooly fallen from scaffold in front of you to the hospital. " F smiled, " If you don't mind, will you please have a glance at this book of mine . " He accepted it and the Founder thanked him.
The F returned the next morning. As he entered the compound , forgetting his position as a collector , he came running and shouting , " JAY MAI JAY MARKAND MAI " and opened the motor-door like a brother. Founder was surprised. " What has happened to you ? " Said Mr. M , " Conversion in a night ' Universal ' !! No bitterness of individual religions !! Religion itself to mean Love and Service !! What what what do you so boldly say !! Even if a man does not believe in the very existence of God, you call such a man Religious if he lives the life of Love and Service !! Has any religion said so in such a explicit bold terms ? " Founder said with highest joy , " It is not this humble creature who can dare say that.It is Jay Mai that has shown condescension to the suffering world , out of Her mercifulness for Her children, in this new age. "
Founder says ," Let the patient in his last days eat whatever he likes. If he take these six Mother pills he will be saved." Founder in the most deplorable condition of religion and religiosity takes the attitude of an examiner, who asks, " Which chapter do you know best ? Which questions can you best answer ? You give me the questions I may examine you with, and answer them with your very text books before you. I don't want to lock up my University and Colleges . Tomorrow most brilliant scholars will come forth, if these survive ".
There should be no startling consternation, at a large number of sub - religions. India with so many sub-religions , each one strictly followed by its followers , would be many times much superior to India with an idealistic, hazy, indefinite, chaotic, one Major Religion in Name, neither in belief, nor in action, nor in life .
I do appreciate the practical hardship and difficulty. A man may think one way today and his view may change tommorow. The wisest foresight is to define your religion as broadly as you can.Don't be retreating step after step with the world's slaps. It is not merely a defeat but a source and cause of contempt and of mutual hatred between the blinder and the bound.
Mai-ism brings down six thousand six hundred and sixty six things to six things only. Six things are also reduced to three trios' (1) Humanity, Love and Service (2) Mother, Devotion and Self-surrender and (3) God, Guru and Disciple. Take up any trio and fire on. Mother speed you. No handicaps of what to dine, when to bath , whom not to touch, which temple, which river, which pilgrimage place, whom to marry, which priest, etc., etc.
Founder says, " For all matters , ask your Mother yourself, when in fully serious and devotional mood. Consult your Guru if have any and chalk out your line of action, in which you don't infringe your selected principles , with Love and Service , Devotion and Self-surrender; I have nothing else to lay down as a compulsory measure. "
I come back to the oldest of old truths. Your benefit is to be measured in terms of your oneness with your Guru , the intensity of your oneness, the intensity of your self-surrender, love, service and devotion to your Guru. The period of your contact ; the repetition of your Sadhana and time given for settlement and maturity. What Guru gives that much alone the Shishya gets. As many Rupees annas and pies the Shishya get. The rest is all delusion and consolation; the crucial-most truth for the modern world that hates the very idea of Guru.
My hearts throbs to declare . " All my labours on them that were not impregnated with the candid and ardent spirit and felling of a Shishya towards Guru are lost."
A mother asked her son to fetch water from a pipe. The boy goes with a vessel and shouts , " Mother I don't get water. " Mother looks. He has held vessel above the pipe. Mother shouts," You can't get even a drop unless you hold your vessel below the pipe. The son holds the vessel below the pipe. Again he shouts, " Mother I don't get water. " Mother looks. He has not held it exactly below the spray. Mother shouts, " You can't get it unless you are holding your vessel in the very same straight line." The son holds it in a straight line. Says he," Mother, I don't get water." Mother shouts ," don't hold your vessel inverted."
The Founder says," Don't expect a single drop, unless in the first place , you have a conviction , you are lower than the Guru. Your juggleries of sweet words , little small nominal services, your cheating with two oranges and three plantains , won't do."
Secondly you be in his straight line. Don't expect pipe to shift its mouth to be line with your vessel. Thirdly if you are already full of perversion , all teachings turn poisonous like the milk to a serpent. If you turn perverted later, one variety of which is treacherousness to the Guru himself , even then you can't continue to carry a single drop.
Every one can't be perfect from the first day. One has however a way out., " I will be wicked to the whole world but not to my Guru."I will be thinking and practising all impurities, but not during the moments I am in presence of my Guru. " This much accepted and observed , put the whims-hurt machine into vigorous action, till the smallest atom of a charge become tremendously huge charge.
Guru-Droha , treachery to the Guru, is the highest religious crime.The Guru teaches his disciples and allows him to learn everything and then the fellow turns to break and becomes a different man altogether , as if he had never has met his Guru. Their perverted mentality is this. They think they have an as good right to God or deity, and Guru is only an intermediary nuisance, just like a peon of an officer. He is simply to be kelp pleased with four-anna-piece. " Once we are admitted in , we know how to kick the Guru. " Such people think themselves within their minds to be much greater than the Guru. Such people have no idea of the Divine working. They rely too much on their intellect, and think they have the last card in their sleeve, of shedding two tears before God and Guru with a few word of repentance.
Persons believe that , once they have agreed to do a little something of a prayer or worship, not a single misery should befall them, as if Mother has enslaved Herself to them for a few crumbs of prayers. They rush on their Guru , get wrathful. Abandon all relations with God and Guru forgetting all life long benefits . When they again gets kicks and slaps they return to God and Guru.
Only few days back, one person came to the Founder, after a long disconnection.He most seriously said," I was determined not to come to Mother and to you but I finally decided. Let Mother be a Kumata ( wicked mother ) , but I should not be a Kuputra ( wicked son ).Of course he was seriously hurt in financial prospects and had a painful setback. But he would never bring in his former huge uplifts through Mother's Grace , or his unfitness, unfavorable circumstances , worldly enmity or Prarabdha etc. This is highest height of a perversion which the Founder had never dreamt during his whole life. Just the reverse of what we have learnt from centuries, taught by Shri Sankaracharya ." So many sons have become wicked but no mother has yet ever become wicked. "Please note, I am not talking of some villagers or uneducated or penniless people . My experience has been drawn from the society of the highest middle-class and highest education.
My labours are amply rewarded if I am leaving one lesson after me viz., the indispensability of a Guru ( be he whomever you select and change him whenever you decide ), and the strict disciplinary observance of the Guru-Shishya relationship. If you can't be true , good, just and faithful to one person out of millions around you , whom you select , where is there even a phantom of hopefulness for the results of a solid Sadhana ? By Sadhana, I mean the smallest effort for the achievement of the smallest thing about one's religious progress.
For spiritual progress, a time does arrive when you have to say goodbye to the world . We may or may not leave homes . One Mai-istic formula is Bhagjana, Bhulajana, Milajana and Mitjana ( run away, forget, live with Guru , wipe out individuality).
Create maximum leisure by reducing your outer wants and activities. Minimize your responsibilities and conserve your energies. Keep yourself in a company of a superman, for as many moments of your every day as you can. See that your desire do not pull you out from your hidden obscure corner shelter. Try to control yourself as much as you can. When you can't silently suffer , but don't seek remedy which would in turn bring up a forest of more formidable evils. Utilize the first opportunity of running away from the temptation again to your safe corner. Set all worldly considerations aside making their value a cipher , if thereby you escape a pitfall of your slipping in to the mouth of devilishness. Be prepared to be called a coward, a rough man, a rustic, an idiot or even a mad or a bad man , a vicious man, a faithless man or even an ungrateful man. People's good opinion or applause about you is nothing in contrast to your own moral degradation.
In life there are there are many calamities and trying situations. When one has to weigh the worldly benefits and considerations against one's spiritual elevation, or debasement , one must invariably decide in favor of spiritual elevation , foregoing all the worldly calculations and future prospects.
Come what may. Don't leave Mother's Lotus Feet.You have a right to the Mother's Feet and Lap. It is enough that you have tried your best not to be pulled out, and that you have again returned. You area again welcome to the safe corner of purity and rest and peace. Run back at the earliest opportunity. Your right living become so interwoven in your life , that whenever you make a departure, you are filled with unique uneasiness and confusion. You must be so guile-lessness-stamped in your face that even the dullest man of the world would detect you out and force you to be driven back to your corner with a little suffering. Develop your mind to be so sensitive that you yourself can't remain composed, till you have vomited out your wrong actions, intentions, sins, faults and follies.
I assure you from my personal experience . If you are a devotee, Mother saves you with only a slight reproach and a warning and a little loss. She changes the minds of people . How rarest thing it is to meet a man who make confessions with repentance and resolution not to repeat the folly ? Mother helps you in such cases most miraculously. It is the Divine arrangement that saints are harassed by the world , even on false accusations to make them more and more unattached to the world , and to be pulled toward the God.
Nip in the bud, a vicious thought, wish or action. Let the improvement of others be now, only a side activity of your life. Let that infatuation of duty go. A general high sense of duty must be uniform and of the same intensity and not restricted to wife and children only. Every man has his duty towards God, himself, Universe, parents, brothers and sisters and neighbors and posterity as well. Wife and children themselves, although fully mature and discrete, never think about the indispensability by your care and protection, as much as you are dancing about under the name of duty. You have to play your inevitable part alone, with the least attachment.
Every man who has worked hard and gone out of righteousness has a feeling of disgust at the end when he finds and discovers the real mentalities of them whom he looks upon as helpless dependents and dying without him and as ready for very sacrifice for him, when he sees things incompatible with his lifelong exertions and expectations.
Your living as a householder or a relinquisher of the family life is a matter of much less importance than the reality about how you live every moment of your life . You have to pay off your debts. As soon as you are nearing the mark automatically, all the circumstances of life will change, to create a position suited to your new requirements.
JAY MAI JAY MAI JAY MAI
END OF SECOND PART OF ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
THIRD PART
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER X
MAI INSIST ON RATIONALISATION OF RELIGION AND RELIGIONISATION OF RATIONALISM ON CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS
Religion has to be as constitutionally tackled as any modern movement, and with no haphazard ways of financing and defraying expenses and no extremities of recklessness on either side. The first thing I would like to introduce is a licence to preach religion with a view to stop all underhand mischief and exploitation. Let there be a religious congregation with all the well-known saints therein who are interested in raising the general public trend of morality and religiosity by constitutional methods.Let there be a Divine College as well, where all religions are taught and examinations held. So much mischief in the name of religion, through playing upon superstitions and mysticism will disappear. Such rumors as that a certain saint rises five feet above ground in air or that a serpent spreads its hood when another saint goes to sleep, or that a necklace in the neck of a saint being given as a present by Lord Shiva constantly revolves, will be one and all dealt with, and each saint concerned with the rumor will be respectfully asked , how much in the rumor is truth. If they deny, such denials will be broadcasted to remove people's superstitious follies or tricks of exploitation, or they will be put to tests by such congregations, as will be blow up, if found to be humbugs.
Let there be also a religious family heads' assembly and a commoner's council, all consisting of truly religious people interested in spreading morality, religiosity and a better relationship of man to man. The whole essence of all my exertions in religious life and preaching, has at the end, brought me to a conclusion that religious preachers in the modern age have simply waisted their life to fill up a certain site with waters to form a beautiful lake , whereas others have desired to have a dry rocky foundation for a massive building for a pleasure house, on the very site. After all exertions are over, we have found that very fundamental beliefs and opinions and decisions and judgments have been different and even contradictory. What a hopeless wastefulness of life it is , to be consuming one's everything over them that have been holding just the contrary beliefs.
Welcome every family head to express his religious and social views in open declarations, and help each one, to take up one's place in the class where and his family would be in natural waters with men, environments and atmosphere suitable for all ambitions , experiences and progress. Let there be a clear-cut arrangement of each in matter of his either following or leaving a particular , definite organization of certain principles , beliefs and customs. No dabbling thereafter.
Let all saints and saintly persons and religious minded interested eminent persons , once sit together, putting all their heads together, with their best mettle , to chalk out some to save Religion. It is high time to make some such beginning of an institute, with a permanent standing interest of a fully constitutional organisation, with the all year around running activity , with the exclusive specific aim and object of ameliorating and preserving morality and religion , maintaining the culture and caliber and general standard . One such a beginning is made , in however poorly in a way, it is sure to do its work most efficaciously after sometime.
Please note one extremely subtle point. This sort of work, none can begin except saints. Here the best worldly householder can do very little. They can only help saints , but the initiative can be taken by saints alone , who has risen above self-interest , under no infatuations of personal attachments and universal-minded, especially as it is an upstream task, against the natural mass flow and because it requires for its success god's Grace , obtained by living a life of Love, service , devotion and Self-surrender . We require ministry of saints , an assembly of family heads and a council of individuals , with volunteers of both sexes to work methodically and constitutionally.
Summarising the whole religious situation, this book has been written with a view to give all impartial information about Mai-movement is. What are the tenets of Mai-ism, what beliefs the Founder has been holding, what he has to suggest , how far his experience has approached and mastered the absolute Truth, how has he worked and tried to increase the religiosity of the world etc.
In the first place the Founder is strongly of the opinion, that the world, any nation , community, family or an individual, can not be happy without religion or to put in Founder's words, without religiosity. Of course the word religion has to be very widely interpreted in a much wider sense than what we have till now. It should not mean any individual religion, nor should even the belief in God be indispensable qualification of a religious man. It should be enough if he loves and serves mankind with a universal mind. The belief of God's existence may dawn later. A belief by itself is nothing unless it prompts and controls you to be acting best with your brothers and sisters, or rather Mother's children.Exemption from the belief of the existence is only a compromise and a concession. That there is an invisible world , a life after death, the providential arrangement of invisible helpers and help etc., that there is the finalmost Beneficent Divine Mother who helps guide sand saves Her devotees - is the personal experience of the Founder which he has narrated. It is an experience which has come down to us since the world began, actually to so many blessed fews, who have tried with that conviction to set the world aright. They have well neigh succeeded. The process of regeneration and degeneration of the world is constantly at work, just as any house since the time it is constructed , gets dirty from time to time and has to be cleared by efficient well wishing philanthropic workers.
The Founder wants to make the first exterior form of a religion, to be as simple as can to be acceptable by any beginner, so that, to start with,everyone has an admission at some one stage or another, and is not left to be groping in the dark. Subtleties may follow, as the aspirant shows his worth and solid progress, like the primary education , whether you have an aptitude for study or not , whether you are dull or bright , whether you have mechanical, artistic or scientific training , you must have been admitted into some school. It does not matter if the work in the primary class is simply eating sugar pills and gradually learning the counting of their number. Lower the depth from which you begin cement filling, surer is your foundation, and safer is your construction thereon.
The highest emphasis that the Founder has to lay upon is " Nothing can be achieved or attained, unless you die for it." Prefer being worn out, to being rusted. Even a failure or a defeat is more glorious than the lukewarm deadness and inactivity, expecting others to do what you can do or expected to do. The Founder is not pessimist or a fatalist. He is extremely optimistic and a believer of Mother's Grace which can overturn the whole working of the world. Here too, there is a difference of belief and a reminding is necessary. God or Guru will help you. Without their Grace you can not move an inch, but it is you who have to lay brick over brick to construct your sheltering place.
Further the Founder is for steady and slow progress in quite a rationalistic way, just as you master any art and any science. He asks," What sort of people and of what stuff are we, if in order to be approaching a high soul, who has mastered his mind , we need a fool's impossible and impracticable stories?" Mai-ism is rationalisation of religion and religionisation of rationalism.
All humbug in the name of " Choo mantar " should go. There is no higher supernatural power than one that can be attained by repetition of pure and simple name of ' JAY MAI ' day and night, while living the life of love, service, devotion and unconditional cheerful self-surrender.
He is doing for even a little, rather than doing nothing on one hand; and just reversely for doing nothing, rather than doing anything insincerely. He prefers a little religion to ‘no religion’ and irreligion to ‘sham religion ‘.
He gives greater importance to the inter-dealing between man and man, than man and God, “Be first a man, than, a brother, and thereafter alone a religious man.” He gives much greater importance to the formation of character than the versatility in sacred lore and Divine knowledge. He takes your practical life and living to be the deciding factor, as to the rung of the spiritual ladder on which you stand.
He recommends practice and practice of the smallest things under the guidance and Grace of the Guru and Mother’s Mercy. He quotes so many practical instances of himself wherein he has been a failure to do a certain most mechanical thing for which he has no practice.
He is not for tomtomming the greatness of Vedas and Geeta or studying the various formulas by heart, he is for original impartial thinking in religion.
There are certain truths which are required to be hammered on the minds of genuine religious aspirants. You have the nail, you are putting it in the wall-hole, but you are not hammering it in. The nail must go deep, so much deep, that one cannot take it out. That action is absent. Hammering, practice, repetition, repetition after repetition, till mastery is attend, that is the thing which is hopelessly absent these days.
Why is it absent? Because Guru – Shishya relationship is gone and people have a rotten belief of ‘Choo – mantar’. All that rottenness must go. You got a Mahatma with some two plantains and three oranges. You expect that you are going there and making the offerings of things will give a Goa lottery. This mischief must go. It is there, because people do not want to approach God or Guru or Religion, unless they are materially benefited and that too, to an unimaginable degree. Most of them go for material benefits only.
More than these, are to be blamed the Gurus, the Saints, the Mahatmas. They never disillusion them. The very notion and popular notion of ‘religion ‘needs a change. Let Mai-ists begin with the simple definitions, “religion means selflessness “, “Progress in religion means diminution of selfishness.
There are many religious personages who simply live on the superstition of people and exploitation of their credulity, hopes and fears. Mai-ism condemns nothing so much as rumors of untrue mysticism, the devil of ‘Choo – Mantar'. Someone approached Founder and said,” I hear Mother is taking food with you actually sitting by your side, especially on Fridays after midnight. Is that true? “The Founder scoldingly said, “Are you a fool? Do you think Mother has no other business to do? I have actually seen Mother so often. To that extent people are right. She loves me. She would as far as possible never displease me setting aside my demand. She will do anything for me. But this talking of dining together is again the evil of the devilish ‘Choo-Mantar’ mentality of people.
The belief in happenings entirely out of proportion with reason is harmful in so many ways. First thing is it makes you indolent and indifferent. Second thing is it makes you less grateful. Third thing is, a failure creates destructive reaction. Fourth thing is, your ideal as also the evolutionary progress gets stuck up in materialistic mud. To explain this: When an incurable disease or a dangerous illness case is undertaken. Founder has seen even doctors themselves entirely out of proportion regarding the time required to cure. There was a doctor of good repute who was suffering from an alternate day fever, for years together. He came to Founder. In spite of his repeated telling about the said human blunder, he expressed his surprise because he had a fever after he left the Founder. He was then asked to keep a chart. He was cured within nine weeks.
There is a human tendency which values everything with reference to its cost price. If the cost-price is nothing, because people have no standard of weighing prices which are not in terms of rupees, people expect things to take place at the snip of fingers; they feel nothing like gratefulness; they get habitual to think most mechanically, that things must take place on doing certain things.
Religious path is only one-foot wide between a valley on one side and a steep hillock on the other with huge loose stones.Now, about the valley and the loose-stone hillock emergency experienced in my life . If we do not show the greatness of God and mercifulness of Mother , the world goes on degenerating at the most surprising speed. I though to myself, let us be stooping to meet half-way. Once or twice let people have the experience of Mother's Mercy at the smallest approach and the faintest prayer. For some time it appeared as if that was right way to pull the world from the materialistic infatuation . I put honey over the bread for the sick child, but the child liked away the honey and left the bread untouched. I have failed in this experiment , but any way, Sahara desert earth has been moistened with rains which have not gone in vain.
The world's largest blunder is here. If water is to be pumped out from a well 60 feet deep and each stroke raise the water by one foot, people make the blunder of considering all previous workers that bring water to 59 feet as hopeless ones.The last man touches the pump and with one stroke , water falls out. People called the last man hero. During the time period between the two incarnate saints, there are so many saints of comparatively smaller capacities, but it is their work mainly that help the future saint to do his work the best.
It is not a small thing, people with absolutely no idea of God , Guru or Religion , get a conviction that there is some higher power, which can rule the destiny of the world and which on propitiation can help one out of his calamities. Let them go to the Guru, only when they are under calamity and let them disappear as soon as it is over. A time will come when people will have sense enough to see," We are always in some hardship or another; why not then have a continued relationship with Mother ? "
Remove all your muddle about religion and Guru. Under Mai-ism there should be no haziness and religion is a pure and simple thing , a science of Divine laws , more perfect, systematic , regular and effective and disciplinary than the medical science. Let there be no cloudiness - let it be a clear-cut notion . Religion is a science of mental cure and removing the soul disease, soul-weakness, soul-impurity. It is more than enough if you have one-tenth of serenity and preparedness and honesty of purpose, that you have with a doctor when you fell ill, while you approach religion or your Guru.
Applying the smallest test, where an average man of today is in the realm of religiosity. Only yesterday a child about 5 or 6 years old came to me early morning and told me, " Babaji, see, I have these four rupees, may I place them before Mother ?" A hot blast passed in my brain. " How religious and charitable the parents of a child must have been.". I was thinking whether I should accept the gift of the child , without informing the parent.The child was told," You come with your papa and mommy ". The child said so very sweetly," Daddy gives me the money like this to play, I can do anything and I like to give it to Mother. I am going to Mother and putting these four rupees there ". I was so very joyfully surprised at such inborn religiosity of a charitable disposition. The child went there. I did not accompany. He place the four rupees and removed the silver Paduka worth rupees 30 . He had seen the Paduka previous night. The modern child of an extremely fertile brain, found out a scheme in the night and came up as soon as it got up.
There are certain blunders in respect of which a spiritual aspirant has to be very careful. Everyone sees so very clearly the smallest mole in the case of others, and especially in them, whom he dislikes, envies or competes with, but is so blind about huge blunders in his own life. He judges others instead of judging himself.He looks up for help, consolation and relief outside , instead of inside.He mistakes himself to be body instead of soul. He wants to seat in the centre instead of circumference.He sleeps where he ought to be awake and is minutely focusing his eyes , where he should use his eye-lids. He brings in Vedantism and Adwaitism when he should act with a sense of duty and strict observance of the fundamental requirements of morality.From Divine Knowledge , he picks up not long-sightedness, but lameness. From Devotion he squeezes out not the high pure and sanctified imaginativeness and poetic devotional flight of joy but dullness and blindness. He is theoretically aware of every shade of philosophy and Divine Knowledge and of every emotional spray of the highest Devotion , but he does not know the art of making the right use thereof , in practical life , by proper suitable adjustments . Further what he does for others is worth millions . What others do for him is not worth a single farthing.
You know a certain belief or understanding to be wrong but you stick to it because you have passed so many years with it. Your ability to overcome the continued habit is another thing, but the bigotry is the greater handicap to the spiritual progress . Passions from within prompt you and drag you to do things , which you to be wrong. Here and in all the cases above , repeated practice and creation of relishlessness alone can help.
Find ample leisure by accepting a plain-living simple life.Don't make a dustbin of your brains, by allowing all your neighbours to put the dirtiest refuse therein.Let your passion of being considered clever and up-to-date-informed go. Why are you so very anxious to be valued at much higher value than what you really are ? Think of the ancient wisdom, most impartially, most sympathetically. start with an assumption, where you differ, that you may be in wrong, being in-experienced. Where your mind conflicts with the said things , approach your Guru, place your doubts respectfully, humbly and servingly.
What is a man to gain by living in or leaving the world ? Or by an artificial creation of a disgust for Worldliness , Women or Wealth ? Let there be no misunderstanding about these three W-s for a Mai-ist. Each of them though generally condemned , by one and all who talk about Religion, is indispensable for the very betterment and spiritual progress itself.The secret of success and the wisdom lies in the most judicious use of theirs , and in being the master and not a slave to them. There are certain Universal never failing Divine Laws and Principles of Living, which can teach us the judicious use and the art of mastery.
Founder asks , Is there no intermediate attitude between infatuation and condemnation ? We get infatuated because of our greediness, lustfulness and ne-science . The infatuation makes us miserable and we vent out to our spite by condemnation. The condemnation again has its reaction. Condemnation results in antagonism, disquietude and starvation. Starvation leads to insatiable hunger.
Some saints - not the highest saints - would go on abusing wealth and their followers will raise to skies about their saint not touching coins , although people could see with their open eyes , that their disciples leave no opportunity to make every provision for the saint's comfort, properties and future requirements. Indirect utilization and direct disconnection ; internal infatuation and external condemnation , is a hypocrisy, about which, every spiritual aspirant should be extremely watchful.
A Mai-ist is extremely moderate. He is the follower of Mother who in virtue of Her conceptional sex is a woman. A Mai-ist is the worshipper of the Most Merciful Mother. Mai-ism advises," No Infatuation and No Condemnation ". Every thing has its best uses.Raise yourself, by making the best righteous moral and judicious use and develop the control of your mind , thought , desire and action, which gives you the mastery and proofness by Sadhana with Grace of God or Mother and Guru.
The Founder makes and insists on the sharpest distinction of wealth righteously and religiously earned and used and reverse. Simultaneously with the former, non-attachment should be developed. Inwardly there should be a practice , which gives you a preparedness for the throwing off wealth and materialistic happiness at any moment. At no time there should be a forgetfulness of the truth that the desire for materialistic happiness catches your throat after a long continued period of its enjoyment. You must determinedly and designedly manage some breaks in the continuation of comforts and happiness, even if they automatically come to you unexerted for and unsolicited.
The Founder is tender-hearted regarding even materialistic happiness, so cruelly condemned by all religionists. Says he ," What would be joy for sustenance of life for them, that have not been trained to, and have not tasted , the higher joys and happiness of emotional, mental, spiritual, and devotional nature ? Under the scorching fires of worldliness, why do you grudge and blame them for indulging in their own avenues of joy , so long as they don't leave their righteousness and harmlessness ? Don't forget they are incapable of enjoying higher joys and that joyfulness is indispensable for the sustenance of life ". Let every one be happy and have the joy of one's own natural worth stage and plane, righteously and religiously.
Act most constructively. Don't be a teacher whose highest efficiency proceeds only from sever caning. Train disciples, followers and people to seek joy and have the relishfulness of the higher sources. Spontaneity and Sadhana with patience and perseverance is the soul and secret word of Mai-istic improvement. Lay your highest stress and insistence on wealth being earned and used righteously and religiously, on charity and magnanimity and keeping virtue , humility, justice , truth, innocence , purity, harmlessness and helpful for all.
Teach the world to be seeking relief, from other than money purchasable sources of innocent joys and pleasures , which are so many and with which the world had pulled on for centuries before the advent of western materialism. Righteously and religiously earned and used wealth, with non-attachment and preparedness for the dispensability of money-purchasable pleasures is an extremely valuable asset by itself in the scale-pans of Mai-ism.
What we want now is agitation and action, shelving all theories and philosophies. Dynamos must be set up to dart forth currents after currents. A strong religious machinery with the most gigantic constitutional and consolidated and continued effort of religious universal-minded men in an original form, with all the necessary equipment of men. and money and material must be planted . Religious education with practical demonstrations in the lives themselves of the living great can do a lot.
Coming to the subject of the individual self-improvement, don't have the royalty of having the highest man as your Guru. Such Gurus will have hundreds of disciples like you. You can't have the benefit of individual attention. He must be a dullard who requires the highest London-degree-teacher for studying primer. What comes in his way is his swollen-headed egoism. Your Guru need not be perfect.You will never get one , nor will such one will accept you in the real sense of word. It is enough if he is spiritually superior to you and has your spiritual and temporal welfare at his heart, if you find that you can confide in him regarding your defects , weaknesses and secrets.
Let the mischievous notion of " No Guru and No Authority " go. Our life moves with faith. You continue under your home-roof while the rainy storms are there, because you have the faith that the Engineer has built it strong enough. You have never seen the Engineer nor gone to study his wall-beam and roof calculations. You take food prepared by your mother, because you have the faith she will never poison you. You take medicine from a doctor because you have a faith the doctor would not commit the blunder. You fly in aeroplane because you have faith in pilot. You can't move an inch without taking so many things as granted, with faith. What is this newly imported nonsense of "I don't believe things I have not seen" ? You pass your life in the belief that your name is so and so, you identify yourself with that name. Is that of your own independent making ?
You may qualify your faith if you like. It should not be a blind faith or a credulous faith or irrational faith. You must be free to change your Guru when you find you are in the wrong, but you can't proceed without your faith. Service , faith and love are important factors.
With ample leisure, with an unoccupied brain, with the vital energy of celibacy ( to the extent possible if you are married and to the full extent otherwise ), start on.Never think how much remain to be done. There is no end. Always keep in mind how you have progressed, to keep yourself cheerful.Every step that you rise makes you better man more fitted to claim and command happiness, not only for one life , but for lives and lives. A permanent and perpetual gain till you gain salvation. Although the path is long enough, it is this providential arrangement which keeps courage , patience and perseverance.A single step climbed or a single atom acquired in the religious progress is never lost.
Why so much cry against Guru-acceptance ? No doubt, there may some few cases of the confidence being being betrayed, but the main reason is absence of humility, over-estimate of one's self and greatest reluctance to pay the price in terms of love and service , devotion and surrender to Guru. When you associate with others, you have the pleasure of being worshipped if others are inferior to you. On the other hand, you have to be worshippers and therefor the superiority Guru pinches you. People lose their common sense when they enter the realm of religion. One of the Founder's intimate acquaintances, a high-class Government Officer , once told him, " I hate the very idea of seeing Gurus garlanded. It is cruel murdering the principle equality. My head turns at the idea, a disciple should garland a Guru.". Once that friend talked over to the Founder, on returning from a place of his long tour of several official visits . The in-charges of some places garlanded this hater of Guru-garlanding. He said to his friend," There are very few men of my staff who know what is gratefulness. Such few alone garlanded me during my tour and did their duty. Other people I hate. They never once thought where they would have been but for my raising them from pay to pay and post to post. Should they not even do such a simple nominal thing as garlanding their bread-giver when he goes to them for an official visit ?"
Is it not your experience in this experience in this world that a multi-millionaire sets right all wrongs with money, his own incapacities , vices, weakness etc ? As a multi-millionaire can do any thing with spiritual wealth, so the devotees with the spiritual wealth attained on practising devotion can do anything in the spiritual world.
Nothing is so powerful as the repetition of the sacred name of your deity, be it Mother, Rama, Krishna, Shiva, Shakti, Surya, Ganesh or Allah or Christ, whoever he be , getting the Mantra from your Guru. Fire on day and night, whenever and wherever you find leisure.One hour daily for about six months will assure you, there is an appreciable change in your outlook. Here much depends on the intrinsic value of your Guru, to put it in simplest language , the intensity of love between the Guru and the worshipped and the love between the Guru and the Shishya and the intrinsic worth of the Guru and the disciple.
Founder quotes an interesting instance. There was a Madrasi devotee whom the Founder met in a train. He was repeating Shodashakshari Mantra. He had decided to finish one lakh( 100,000) repetitions. His one lakh repetitions finished on Belgaum station. Founder also got in to the second class where that Madrasi devotee was the only passenger. Founder was in English dress and Madrasi with sacred ashes smeared all over his body. The devotee got suddenly an idea that the foretelling of his own Guru viz. that he will meet a great devotee on his finishing one lakh, was perhaps to be true in meeting this new man, the Founder. He tried to enter in religious conversation with the Founder , but the Founder curtly replied like an irreligious man who had no soft corner for religion itself.
On the next halting station, the devotee got down and changed his compartment. on the further stopping station, a man with a decent Rumal turban in coat and pant, collar and neck-tie , entered Founder's compartment and sat by Founder's side. Founder looked in his face and astonishingly asked him," Please excuse me . I think I have seen you somewhere." The man smiled and prostrated to him while saying," Yes, on the Belgaum station". Founder saw he was the same man and before he completely prostrated , lifted him up and embraced him most fervently. Said that man with a smile ," Bhaktaraj, Now at least you will talk with me heart to heart. i am no longer that fanatic orthodox Brahmin you thought me to be ". The Founder attaches small value to the ceremonial part. He thought of giving the devotee an additional experience and pleasure. He began to sing the very Shodashakshari Mantra in Khamacha tune. The gentleman got the proof. Both enjoyed spiritual ecstasy.
The point here to be emphasised, is that there is an inviolable connection between the completion of a certain numbers of japams ( mantra repetitions ), if done with devotion and single-mindedly , and some happening which immediately assures you about the efficiency of the Mantra repetition.If there is no result, take it, there is something wrong with you; continue till you have convincing proof.
When you reach this stage , you have a current account in an international Bank. You can move in any part of the world , with only a cheque book, taking care to see that you do not overdraw and you go on depositing.
Many think they have achieved the goal, on getting a good practice of Mantra repetitions. as a matter of fact this is only securing an equipage , for further journey. The aspirant has simply secured the Mother's Armour and Guru's Shield . The fight he has yet to be launched in. He has to fight a hard fight on the one hand and keep himself fully invigorated with Deity's devotion and Guru's service, on the other.
Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER XI
MAI CHITTASHUDDGHI SADHADNA
JAY MAI JAY MAI JAY MAI
Till 1940, Mother had preserved me from the poisonous contact with the world. How can I convey to you my feelings of wonderfulness and gratefulness to Mother, for having kept me enwrapped up in the end of Her garment just touching Her heart ? To protect me against the bitter blasts of the cold and heat of the worldly winds.
Will you believe I am shedding tears when I am writing now ?At any rate you can not have the mental state which I am passing through.They are tears of my ungratefulness and joy on eye-opening.I wished my eyes were never opened at all to the trickiness and wickedness of the world.What I have ultimately gained by losing my ' child-like state ' ? I bless the age when anyone can cheat me and triumph over me , when I can be nothing like a hard nut to any one of the world to be dealt with any way and even swallowed up. Why ? My heart chokes to speak out : Why ? My Mother in that stage of helplessness never left me away. I had my arms round Her neck and yet as if I was likely to slip, Mother was impatiently pressing me and holding with Her strong hands on my back. The moments when my small little whole self was not stuck up and riveted with Her portion between neck and the waist, were few. As I grew up and became too heavy, I was taught moving ; but yet such moments were only few and counted as when Her eyes were not at all the while after me and at my back when I annoyingly said first to myself and, then to Mother, " I am no longer a baby, no longer a child , I am a boy can't you see ? I can take care of myself. I can think out my problem myself. I can make my own way ahead. I know how to make my progress; why should you be entanglement in my way, following me where ever I go ? "
On a fine evening, full of ecstasy, why a motor was carrying the Founder, most cautiously along the fringe of a deep valley, at the dusk,with a fragment of fear as the night was approaching, the Founder was making an oblation of his tears to his dearest Mother in the valley, with these words : " गोद बिठा जब, मूल न जाना , जाना , तब नही गोद बठाना , माई कुपुत निभाना - छोड चरण कहा जाना "
" When I was being made to sit in the lap of Thee, Oh, my Mother, I had no knowledge and idea of my blessedness. When , now, when I have an idea and craving, I am now not permitted by Thee to sit in Thy lap ". " Mother Thy ways are mysteriously unfathomable. Let Thy will be done. I only prostate to thee and pray " . " Somehow because of Thy own majestic Mercifulness, tolerate Thy wicked son ".
" As unto this wide world, I went forth. There gained ample worldly wisdom Lost sweet innocence , and Thy Kingdom . And my place on Thy lap, as a wicked son. Oh Accept me as I am, Blessed one " Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai.
Today hundreds sing these lines, translated by late Bro. A.S. Mundkur with other Founder's psalms. Let the tears shed in that valley carry their fruits all over the world. I do see, though most faintly, Mother's motive. She is passing me through boisterous boyhood and mischief-ful manhood, to make me more and more beloved and better and better innocent and Mother-absorbed baby. The repeated and alternate process of dipping an impure gold tablet in corrosive chemicals and velvet pieces, till it becomes full twenty-four carats gold.
It is at the end of your travel and travail, that you know how very gracious Mother had been to you, while you were cross with Her for keeping you simple enough to be cheated by the world. At the end alone you realise, that was to make you pass successfully through and turn you to be proof to any and every calamitous situation that can possible arise. To carry you to the stage where you can challenge the world saying ," So long as I have Mother's Mercy and Guru's Grace with me , come what the world can crush me with. "
Well then, equip yourself with Mother's Mercy and Guru's Grace both, through Love Service Devotion and Unconditional Cheerful Self Surrender , and begin fighting your enemy, one after another and make your headway towards the Kingdom and Capital of Mai. Is that difficult ? No. Is that easy ? No. It is difficult or easy as Mother wishes that thing to be for you. Mother reveals Herself to such beloved ones of Hers as have their eyes opened by Her with the celestial ointment of Divine Knowledge , on their fixing their minds on the lotus Feet of Mother.
Proceed slowly, but steadily, most cool-mindedly. It is no a day's work. The greatest advantage with its uniqueness is that every step you gain is a permanent achievement. Start from the very alpha , even if you are at the age of sixty. Go rung by rung over the ladder. So that you don't slip. Wait and stop if you are feeling nervous and giddy. Even recede a few steps if need be. Let not your goal be out of your sight any moment of your life. Know it, sooner or later, with your maintenance of happiest relations with God and Guru, the Kingdom is bound to be yours.
A pass-ability even with grace marks , should be acquired in what is expressed as gratefulness, greatness, goodness and givingness, before a man is really fit for the further two stages of godliness and goingness. These are the six G - s of Mai-ism. By giving is meant not the mechanical parting with money as that a poor man can not do , but giving a higher return than an average man.
The man who has passed these four stages has good relations with all round him. People hear fewest complaints and rumors about him. He has no peevishness. He is not put out as soon as there is some opposition. He has the same respect for the others and others' opinions which he expects for himself, he has the same consideration for their conveniences and comforts. If some one is wrong with him, he says," Days will pass and we shall again be friends ". He has trained himself to look at any question, placing himself in the position of the person dealt with. He is able to see things not only as himself, not only as his opponent, but also as all concerned and all unconcerned. He is able to charitably view any situations from all sides and all angles. His greatness of intellect and outlook is not without goodness. His superior intellect does not make him a selfish master over others. He is not the exploiter of the less intellectual or the less experienced. He is not petty minded. He does not identify himself with his wife and children alone. He has the soft corner for every one of the humanity.
He never takes advantage of someone's helplessness. He thinks it is meanness to profit by the helplessness of others. He does not distrust others, unless he has substantial grounds to distrust. He does not see bad motives. He does not believe in inherent badness of others , even when he is actually experiencing it and even suffering. He thinks very likely he is in the wrong, when he is thinking evil about others. He tolerates people hurting him, rather than he be troubling others. He takes every precaution to see that he does not take any good man to be a bad man , does not matter if he has to suffer as a result of his blunder of taking a bad man to be a good man.
Mai-ism draws a sharp distinction between religion and religiosity. Religiosity is the state of being and doing what religion asks you to be and to do. It is the burningness and coolingness of the Sun and moon. take a high standard of understanding and outlook. To you your Rama and Krishna or Shiva may be gods. Your Vedas and Geeta may be God's words and revelation. But what are they to the non-Hindu world ? On the other hand, you live the life of duty like Shri Rama, live the life of non-attachment in the midst of all the temptations like Shri Krishna , live the life of complete renunciation like Shri Shiva . Even if you are living in midst of people whose very language you don't know your language , you will see in their eyes a love and reverence for you and a desire to intimate you. Religion without religiosity is a corpse. Your living should preach your religion and not your scriptures and loud lectures. Preachers must be witnesses and living models and neither lawyers nor professors.
Mai-ism is extremely practical. Its long and perhaps even tedious instruction should not cause any disappointment. Once Mother's Mercy and Guru's Grace are secured and retained, Mai-ism tells you, most assuredly, you are sure to pass. How many years you are required to be under the coaching is a matter of your capacities and exertions and studiousness.
Once let it be firmly established that a man deaf and a dumb, a man lame and blind, a man with no education and no schooling , can be religious under Mai-ism.Religion is to be seen in the life you live and not in words you speak or right or in some particular external ritualistic actions or observances that people call as religious.
Well then, first prostate to your God and Guru. First have the meditation of your deity and Guru whoever it be and invite blessings. Don't create a bad feeling around you, but make out a list of divine, demoniacal and intermediary persons, as you move amongst your relations , friends , acquaintances and strangers in the world. Just as you don't go to plague-stricken areas especially during delicate hours of night , so also make it a point to have as little to do with unsuited people as possible.With all persons except them that you select out as divine , let your relations be formal, happy, smooth, jolly, harmless or obliging as you meet a co-passenger in a train.
Those select persons are your kith and kins on the spiritual plane. You shall have to meet them so often and have dealings with them. Even though in the worldly relations you may be quite remote , you will be brought together at some Guru's , God's or Saint's place , or sometimes through correspondence etc.
So, the Founder introduces you to your God, Guru, Geeta and your gallants and gloves ( your real kith and kins ) and the globe.The life you live on your own restricted globe with your gallants and gloves, is your spiritual or religious life.
Let us then have some idea as to how a religious man and an irreligious man live, or seen to live, how are the temperaments of both formed. As a matter of fact, this should be the first natural question of any spiritual aspirant who wants to make a spiritual progress. This world is so much of full contradictions and hypocrisies, that is hard to distinguish one type from another.
The man, by nature, with no spiritual culture, is crafty, busy with laying snares for others, deceiving them and having his self and self serving as the be-all and end-all. The religious man is simple-hearted. He evades all approach to and by evil, and in whatever he does , he first thinks whether his actions will be pleasing or dis-pleasing to God and his conscience . In matter of worldly gains , he keeps own self always in the background.
The man by nature, never likes to be troubled or to be checkmated in his liberties to go his own way; he does not like to be defeated or subjugated to any control or to be obediently serving any other being. Any yet wants mastery overall others around him.The religious man considers every trouble in the pursuance of his religious course to be a definite gain which makes him more hardy. He does not dis-like to be under a restraint and feels pleasure in serving others . He loves to be disciplined and humble.
The ordinary man has his eye always on whatever benefits him the most; whereas the religious man has a consideration about the maximum benefit to many and all.The common man runs after the fame where as the religious man does not crave for name and fame.The usual man is trying to cover his faults and to look much higher than what he naturally is. The religious man feels no shame in being known as he is, and feels at times relieved on making his confessions with compensations to the aggrieved. The usual man loves ease, comfort and pleasure, wishes all his desires to be immediately fulfilled and looses his balance as soon as anything contrary to his wishes takes place. The religious man weighs all things in the scale pans of eternity and is, all the while cool and quiet, being sure that he is depositing his merits in a never-failing Bank. The ordinary man is always for secrets , privacy, exclusiveness and for getting. The religious man keeps all his cards open, feels oneness with so many and gets pleasure on giving and sharing his joys with others.
The common man is , all the while, looking to his body and sense and their pleasure. The religious man has his concern with soul and improvement of his mind and character. The worldly man wants to do nothing without a multiplied return. The religious man is just the reverse of the nature. He does not go under the obligation of others and consider services rendered to others as his duty to his fellowmen or to the children of his God, or to the very same soul of his in other bodies.
The religious man has a greater sympathy towards virtue,innocence and Godliness; the other man towards pleasure , intellect and power. The one loves justice and truth, the other loves conquest and holding his own. The usual man is always complaining of his wants and dis-comforts and is always dis-contented. The religious man cheerfully and contentedly, with hopefulness in better days to come, and with renunciation to the will of God , passes his life unagitatingly and smoothly.
The common man needs news and thrills day-to-day. The religious man loves constancy . The usual man turns everything he can lay hands upon to his own advantage , disputes and quarrels.The other man tries ti bring about a reconciliation, accepts defeat or retires. The common man revolts against Divine Will and Wisdom. The other man obeys and submits thereto.
The above is rambling description. They alone are truly religious under Mai-ism who do or do not live as both ways narrated. Just find out your place , in view of each and every line written here.
As we go on advancing, we have to come to certain thumb-rules and formulae. It is not possible for a man to be every time fundamentally thinking every case that offers itself for forming a decision. In so many cases he has no time to think. At the same time man can't go on experimenting all his life and inviting failures with deplorable waste of time. He therefore, once for all, decides, that in such and such case , he would immediately act in a particular manner. It is in this that makes a man to have certain beliefs and principles based on his own experience and study of things around him, to save his time, mental labor and trouble. Let a particular situation arise, he acts in a particular manner automatically, without weighing all pros and cons . There arise a need for ready-made prescriptions , when the demand for decisions becomes pressing.
To recapitulate , for instance, in case of Mai-ists, their first formula is Love, Service, Devotion and Self-Surrender ; and the next one referring to their progress , that of gratefulness, greatness, goodness, givingness, godliness and goingness. Goingness is the same ting as merging into Mother. After a long period of godliness as its culmination point , comes the goingness. On the usual plane , it means the submergence of all diversities into the One Unity, wiping out all distinctions and differences and going away from the magnetic field of worldliness and having no desire remaining to be fulfilled , or no action remaining to be done.It is ceasing to have a separate existence , or on the highest plane, it means Emancipation or Salvation. Please note under Mai-ism, Emancipation or Salvation does not mean the extinction of the individuality of the Soul, but the perfection of the soul to the highest stage of enjoying universal conscientiousness and existence. Individuality after Individualism is gone. Just like the well-known stage of living after death. Please note the extreme subtle point of belief.Mai-ism does not believe in unreality of the world, except only in a figurative sense , nor in the annihilation of one's soul on salvation. Mergence in Mother is not becoming nothing, but being same as Mother.The drop does not evaporate and lose its existence, but has all the attributes of the Ganges with which it unifies.
While coming to the formulisation so very necessary at the advanced stage, there are many interesting recipes by different religions, different saints and different devotees.
Kabir's simplest formula is " Pray to God and feed the poor ". Saint Tulsidas gave his formula of " Consider another's wealth as dust and another's wife as mother ". Mai-ism says ," Raise mountains of service to others and deluge rivers of love to others and be always watchful about collecting the treasure of merits or assets and creating the least demerits and liabilities. "
The important recipes which a Mai-ist would do better to have before his are these :
(A) Religiosity has as its four foundation basic corners - Satya , Shaucha , Tapas and Dana - truthfulness, purity of thought word and deed , self-mortification and mercifulness. Self mortification has its simplest form in the Mai-istic virtue of Service ; and Mercifulness is only another word for Love.
(B) Manu advises : Ahimsa, Satya, Brahmacharya and Indriya-nigraha. ( Harmlessness, truthfulness, non-stealing, celibacy and sense control )
(C) The more general and less technical and most common things to be constantly dealt with, in case of almost every man, of what have been so very popularly called the six enemies ruling every man internally. These are Kama,Krodha, Lobha, Mata, Moha and Matsar. Kama ( काम ) or the desire is the inner urge which makes us indulge in thoughts and imaginations of certain pleasures , usually denied. Krodha ( क्रोध ) or the anger is the hot and strong feeling against somebody or something who or which comes in the way of our fulfilment of our desires, which displeases us and makes us attack, injure or destroy the disliked circumstances objects or persons. Lobha ( लोभ )or avarice is a passionate desire for possession of things , which we can not possess in usual course , without going out of the righteous and just way of things, which prompts us to be unfair, which disturbs our mind and discontent and makes us dead to the delicate feelings in the matter of consideration for the happiness of others. Mada ( मद ) or pride is extremely exaggerated notion of ourselves, which results in contempt and ill-treatment for , and to, others inferior to us. Moha ( मोह ) or infatuation is the climax condition of a certain desire which makes you lose all your sense of judgement and action, and bodily and mental control. Matsar ( मत्सर) or jealousy is the bitterness of heart experienced on seeing others happier , better off and possessed of certain qualities or advantages more than you, which you desirous of possessing.
(D) The qualifications of the highest importance to them that have actually dedicated their life to the spiritual development are , the six helpers of success : Shama शम , Dama दम , Uparati उपरती , Titiksha तितिक्षा , Shradha श्रध्दा and Samadhana समाधान - Quiescence, Control, Relishlessness, Endurance , Faith and Contentment.
The most important recipes for the common man for daily practice and constant watchfulness are ( A ) to ( C).
Religiosity is not only an intellectual assent to a certain set of beliefs and opinions of the external observance of certain practices , labelled as religious. It is determined effort to live once life in a different way with different ways of thinking and a different definition of progress and a different goal.
Religiosity must be measured in terms of denying ourselves, controlling ourselves in midst of temptations , tribulations and the natural desires to run towards the objects and actions of our sensual desires, and of our being useful to others around as well. Such people as are extremely reluctant to bear any wear and tear, on account of and for any other things, are treated with indifference , antipathy and obstructions , by all around them , especially by the irreligious men. The more irreligious and self-seeking the society around you becomes, the higher is the price to be paid by a truly religious person for being permitted to progress in his different ways. That is the true situation in the newly - developed circumstances. YOU want self-improvement and facilities for a different type of achievement , whereas the world around you wants the maximum benefit from you. Love , service and sacrifice , therefore, come in demand , even though you may not recognise them as final requirement of religiosity, just by way of gagging by the mouths of irreligious obstructions around you, and securing their greatest non-interference and sympathy.In a practical sense, truely religious people are foreigners in the country of worldliness, and can have a smooth running of their life with required facilities, only on rendering solid service and immense sacrifice for the natural residents of a country foreign to them.
First of all, let there be a true picture before your eyes of what true religiosity is. No haziness. No indefiniteness. Follow and catch the truth. See for yourself, what is merely a shadow and what is the substance. That itself is the basic foundation of true religiosity. First , from your full conception , your picture and your wish to be identified with it. Thereafter follow the ways of approaching the picture. The nearer you go you like it and love it; and more and more indifferent and relish-less you become , about all other things around you. The more you love the more you loose yourself. The greater the loosing of yourself, the greater the extinction of all struggles, worries, anxieties and useless activities, resulting in the experience of unprecedentedpeace and happiness.
No haphazardness. No doing something some how , in some manner in some moment. No half-heartedness. No living with one foot on land and another in water, except to the extent you are pulled in , and are unable to hold your own.No wrong notion of attaining true religiosity , which costs you nothing physically, mentally or financially. No exaggerated misbelief of Grace-showers without real deservedness. No dependence on, and expectation of , religious institutes and preachers around you , to keep everything ready for you. No dream of someone exerting for you and your getting the fruits.
Religious irreligiousness is much worse and more dangerous that open irreligiousness.
Hinduism and Hindu saints are welcome to have their own definitions. With them it may be enough that a man is born in the Punyabhumi of Bhatratvarsha and that he is born of sages or a Brahmin family. Mai-ism does not accept that. You must prove your deservedness, no assumption and no exception. If you are big cipher you have no right to be called religious. You have to acquire a certain stage . If you do not have it by natural gift you must acquire it by exerting for it in a regular disciplined manner.
Make a simple chart of these recipes. Cast your eye on any window of Mai-Niwas, and you read the casting 'MAI'. Similarly enter your room and your eyes must fall on a picture of your God, Guru and your chart, which latter you may change as you advance.
Even if you do such a simple thing , as, repeating a prayer, while you go to bed and leave your bed, that will bring a marvelous change , in less than six months. Let the prayer be in your natural language. Repeat this : -
(1) Oh Mother, enable me to live my life with sincerity, purity, austerity and charity.( Stop at each of the four words, to enable you to form a picture of what each word means).
(2) Oh Mother, let me not utter a word of falsehood.Let me not harm anyone.Let me not covet anyone's wealth or possessions.Let me not have any sexual agitation. Let me not drifted away by my body-senses or mind to do anything which does not please Thee.
(3) Oh Mother, emancipate me from the enslavement of these six enemies over me that have taken full possession of my life - wrathfulness, pride, greed, infatuation, envy and desire.
(4) Oh Mother, teach me to be contented with my lot. Let my relishfulness for the pleasure of the world , gradually dry away. Let me have full faith in Thy protection and help; enable me to bear my burden with every endurance.
Not only such a prayer elevating, but whether you feel pleasure and continue your prayers or feel disgusted and stop ( except when you rise higher ), is in itself an indication and a proof where you stand.
Just turn your eyes around you, like a practical man. Have not observed, how much every man is anxious to have a companion in however small an undertaking he enters ? Do we not require some one to remind us in hundreds of matters ? A true wife or husband , a true friend and the true Guru are the most precious possessions in life.
A wise man voluntarily establishes over himself the control fear of someone interested in his welfare , with love for him and greater experiences and capacities. If you have no companion, all your ambitions rise at some unexpected moment and soon have their natural fall, after giving you some temporarily imaginary joyfulness.
Mother has made man perfectly happy, provided he obeys Divine Laws and leads a good life, becomes happier and happier as he goes nearer Mother. Our obedience pleases Mother and She blesses us with greater and greater happiness as reward.In course of time our experience shows us that pleasure does not satisfy us, we get craving more and more and we soon get tired.It makes us soft and weak and often our health also suffers. We come to the conclusion that we can get maximum happiness out of this life , only by doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.In due course we get a conviction that there is no action as happiness bringing as doing good to others, with Love and Service.
We often find in this world , that due reward and punishment are not dealt out to all persons in this life , where we often find the good suffer and the wicked prosper. The answer to that is , there is a future life , and this life that we live is not simply to end with our death. This life is a serious and responsible thing, not to be trifled with, as our fancies drives us.
We are bound to avoid all bad actions and thoughts.We can not always stop bad thoughts coming to us , but we can at least be displeased with them and try to banish them and refuse to yield to them. Regarding what is good or bad, and right or wrong, in the preliminary stages , it is enough if one obeys inner voice of Mother, which people call ' Conscience '.
Even the highest man have to actually pass through a period of practice.Don't hope getting anything free without exerting hard and going through a regular practice. And even that simple practice has under Mai-ism, an importance of a Sadhana.
Although , by one's own efforts in the routine life by frequent references on his charts as to his doings during the day and going to bed with a prayer, a creditable mastery is attained, which is on a much higher plane than that of an average man , the constant alertness and subtle understanding and its working remains at all times necessary, except for the periods he is merged in devotion.On the higher plane , after there is a mastery over the usual vices and virtues, there is the further possibility of a slip, because of strong temptations and ungovernable passions. The nature of these temptations and passions , at least generally as also in one's own particular case, should be very precisely studied.
It should upset one on being told , that even temptations are Mother sent and for making stronger and better, if you are a staunch devotee and have surrendered yourself in Her charge . Such temptations and even passions have their particular purpose to serve , in the matter of preparing the Mother's favorite to be better and better , stronger and stronger.
Provided you have handed over yourself to Mother , these temptations are also a part of the programme set up by Mother , to mature Her pets.For mother's surrendered She manages temptations . She gives the strength. She gives the failure. She gives the success and pulls Her pets up.There is nothing to be disheartened . Only mind the proviso viz., if you surrender.
It is quite a fallacious idea that if you go the end of worst experiences, you automatically, by a reaction become better. It is a satanic idea and a theory of demand head plunged in badness. I go deeper and deeper in a river , there is absolutely no guarantee of my being not drowned.The fact of facts is , you may not be drowned, only if higher power saves you. The proviso works. Once you have lost your own balance, discrimination, control and upward going force, what is more clear than that some other force alone can save you ? It may be any, your God or Guru, or your merit ( Punyam ) or your invisible better Prarabdha , or Universal Love etc.
You have to exert. You have to awaken your latent powers. You have to pass through ordeals. You have to undertake your Sadhana.
One great point however of Mother's Mercy is the Divine psychic law. Every time you succeed in overcoming a temptation , or in controlling your passion, you get many times much more stronger to withstand the next temptation of many times much greater intensity. That is the way Mother trains you up by making you pass through harder and harder experiences , provided , She has taken you up on Her list of pets and surrendered.
Even man has his powers and what Mother desires of him is that he does not misuse them to the selfishness of himself and detriment of others. He has his usual powers of his body and higher powers of mind. 'Manas - मानस ' thinks or knows. ' Chitta - चित्त ' likes or dislikes.' Buddhi बुध्दी ' discriminates or decides and ' Ahankaar अहंकार ' controls the whole function with his pure or impure and strong or weak idea of his ' I and mine '.
A man's intellect is his power of knowing and thinking. A man's will is his power to deliberately wish or not wish certain things .Thus intellect is Manas मानस and Will means both Chitta चित्त and Buddhi बुध्दी .
Man has to keep a constant watch over how his mind works, how he likes and dislikes and all other emotions work. He has to turn his senses away from existing objects, he has to switch off his intellect and mind from bad things and thoughts to think of something good or better; and the last thing for him is to change his environments - if one can - and to have a physical control over his body and its movements. It should be never forgotten that your checkmating action should be very prompt and the psychic law should be always before your mind , namely, that ones you give way, the vice, or passion or temptation , is sure to invade you on the next occasion with much more multiplied strength.
The best thing is to spend your maximum hours with God , Guru and good persons. the secret of self-improvement is " Contact with people in better society, better environment and better atmosphere ". If you have the Guru - Shishya relationship with a worthy Guru, that problem is mainly solved.
Take as a unit the dealing-region of yourself with your God, guru, wife , life-long friend and so on. Each relationship is a unit.Take further a complex unit of yourself with your father's family, your own family , your relations, your society of friends, your professional brothers, your caste-people, your community people, your locality people, your co-disciples and your co-workers in common cause. There is a great wonderful course, that each unit exerts on an individual. The self-preservation instinct is at work. None wants to be thrown out, abandoned and cast to the winds. A man may not care for being moral and virtuous, or for being a religious, but he wants a fullest sympathy of the society and of the immediately surrounding people around. Just study a few cases, of vast changes in different families coming over to reside in a big cosmopolitan city. Customs , habits, prejudices, manners, purdah-importance , jealousy, outlook-narrowness, husband-superiority, stinginess, quarrelsomeness, callousness, bluntness, ruffian-ism, in the heart within - everything change so wonderfully and in no time. The inner pinch of self-interest and self-preservation and the desire of gaining a higher and higher footing is there at full work.
Let therefore the wisest man be extremely careful about his selection of his simple units and complex units. Man can not live without some association of some human beings. Group formations and group isolation are only manifestations of human nature.
Take a complex unit . After all the additions and subtraction, that particular units has its positive attributes, say one unit has goodness, morality, virtue and religiousness; another unit has badness, immorality, vice and irreligiousness. Each group unit exerts a certain influence over every individual of a group and tries to pull and conquer the same to be nearer and nearer the central attribute. Everyone likes to be in intimate touch with others of the same ways. Everyone feels at home, ridden of all constraints in one's own group alone . Everyone gets extremely uneasy and constrained in a foreign environment , and everyone tries to be more or less like the group to which one belongs. Good individuals placed in bad units , have most helplessly to bad for self-defense . Everyone's most natural desire to go higher and higher in rank in one's society, gives an acceleration. If a man is in a good society he wants to stand high with goodness; if in a bad one with badness. He wants to win a general applause. No force is as massive as mass force. If turned to religion, it may bring back universal religiosity in a few decades. This most wonderfully working force must be before the minds of religious reformers.
'Shanti' and 'Sukha' - tranquility and happiness - everyone wants them. These are spiritual qualities.Man's inner soul revolts, against man being turned into machines. These two attainments are indispensable for the spiritual hunger of man. In spite of all atheism and materialism, man is unable to cease to be divine , in his finalmost reality.Why is it that even the most wicked and worst persons are liked to be called righteous and good , just and kind ? Why ? Why are people so very anxious to cover up all their badness and falsehoods , trickeries and hypocrisies ? Why that nature - inner nature - for being called benevolent, philanthropic and living one's life for world's welfare ? Go to any part of the world , of any language , any civilisation; test either the smallest child , or the most tyrannical tyrant ; there , there , is the proof of the 'Divinity of Man'.
Peace can proceed in two ways only, by the satisfaction of the desires or their annihilation. If by the time your ten desires are fulfilled , twenty new desires fill their place , with yet higher forcefulness, where is the hope ? Unless you turn your steps towards the self-denying path, your demand for peace and happiness is only modestly worded but it is in reality a demand for world's conquest.
'Shanti' or tranquility proceeds from 'Naishkarmya' or 'in-action'; and 'Sukha' or happiness proceeds from 'Tyaga' or relinquishment. First have the rationalistic, unclouded , unambiguous, crystal-clear understanding about god, Guru, Religion and Religiosity.Then begin the Sadhana of harmonising all the different tunes within yourself, by actual practice , be they only of simplest nature and of the smallest type . Let every worldly activity be only as an inevitable exception to your standing orders of 'Maximum observance of Inaction'. You will see the preliminary peacefulness dawning over your Soul, in your mind and heart . after fairly good harmonisation, you will be able to form a conception, an image , or a reflection in your mind.
Get mother's Mercy and Guru's Grace and fire on. Be wisest in selecting your environments , company and associations. Undertake constant watchfulness over your heart and mind, thoughts , emotions and actions. Never be discouraged.Every failure is only a preparation for a future success. Say 'I lose nothing on trying '. Say 'Let me have a satisfaction of failing '. When there is fortunately an atom of success, say,' I have to exert a bit more and let me have at least once a nominal success.' When that smallest success is there , say,'Why should I not be successful in every case , if I have been successful in one at least ' and so on. Say," Why, while so many others have succeeded, I should not succeed in every case" ? With renewed energy and renewed hope , proceed on, till you have attained a fairly high perfection.
There is no technicality about Religion and Religiosity. Every man that is born is entitled to it, and knows about it.
You are dying for wealth, for woman or man and for pleasure. You have become living ghosts, for their sake. You just try for these spiritual possessions , you will similarly get them now and here. As a matter of fact in the real;m of religion, the demand is the least, if not none; and you will get the Lord or mother, for practically no price whatever. Mother is only waiting to be shouted for, or mere called.
Two Divine Truths must be constantly before your mind :
(A) Unlike worldly efforts, nothing done here is without its permanent benefit, in spite of seeming failure; because you are busy with bettering your instruments which are ever with you, to be more efficient , not only for the whole life, but for lives after lives, if you believe in rebirths.
(B) There should be absolutely no feeling of drooping, on seeing the contrast of the mountain of work to be done to reach the end and your ant's working capacity. An ant or an elephant , the mightiest army or deserted individual, one and all, are under the kindliest care and observation of Mother and She gives the most handsome return for an ant's or elephant's exertion. You have to pass between two opposites. You feel the task is impossible, on the one hand; on the other you can not succeed unless you have a faith , that you are sure to achieve it. You are drooping at the idea of your inability, and you must have the strength of will, to say that nothing is great for you. The consciousness about your weakness does not permit you to exert yourself , at your maximum possible best. Unless you have that conviction you can't succeed.
It is here that the faith of God and Guru comes in.You say to yourself,"An impossible thing is impossible so long as I have to do it. " As soon as you believe " Mother will do the work for me " and that your part therein is only the determination, devotional intensity, single mindedness, and 'Do or die-exertion' the task becomes easy, provided you have faith in your Guru and in God about His mercifulness and His wonderful powers.
Some persons are so mentally constituted , that if a single thing worth nothing is lost and if they are searching for the same they can't turn their mind to any other thing, till the lost thing is found.Its worth is absolutely no consideration. The peculiar nature is the indicator of the faculty required for 'Sadhana' or vision or realisation of Godliness. " DEHAM PATAYAMI KARYAM SADHAYAMI - देहं पतयामी कार्यं साधयामी " ( I achieve my object or I throw away my body ).
After the preliminary Sadhana of religious requirements described in this chapter , the Superior Sadhana leading to 'Vairagyam' has to be undertaken.This Sadhana is the practice of developing the mind to see in everything 1] temporariness 2]untruthfulness 3]changingness 4] fruitlessness etc.These are the most indispensable factors , in our vision and understanding of the world to make any real headway to go still higher. The perfection in all virtues and the best usual human faculties and capacities, does not bring you to the end of your Sadhana , even if don't want to go higher than doing your best, to have the maximum happiness and minimum misery. Although the said maximum minimum is the most practical and universally acknowledged general goal of human life , the higher you climb, the higher and higher requirements press themselves on you as indispensable and inevitable.
You reach the highest apex of devotion ( Gauna Bhakti ). So long as that has not ripened itself to PARABHAKTI पराभक्ती with Gnana ज्ञान achievement , the culmination point of Divine Love is not reached and the highest bliss is not experienced. Till that final stage is attained, you remain constantly weeping and laughing, and begging and thanksgiving. Where is the end ?
Here the Gnaninज्ञानी , the Vedantin वेदान्ती come in and say ," Crush your mind to pieces. Annihilate it altogether. It is this hopeless mind that shows you heaven and hell, and gives you happiness and misery. ". Follow the teaching and train your mind to the point of annihilation of the mind.
Developing your virtues , character and your usual human faculties and living harmoniously and harmlessly with all in the world is the first great thing. It is not that Bhakti or Gnana are not higher things . But without feet and belly and hands what is the worth of your life with only a sweet heart and sound head ? You can feel most nobly; you can think most ingeniously ; but in practical life you are a big cipher. What is use ? Hence strict abidance to the order of development is most useful, hence the importance of " Love and Service to All " is the highest, especially in this age of reversed ways and values.
An ordinary man, without devotion or gnana ज्ञान , but with character, love and sacrifice , is much happier than and superior to a so called ordinary Bhakta भक्त or Gnanin ज्ञानी without character. The former has secured at least the world's sympathy and co-operation from the world itself and has a vast storage of Punyam पुण्य because of his meritorious actions under the Divine give-and-take arrangement.Remain therefor extremely intent upon enriching your treasury of Spiritual wealth of Punyam पुण्य , utilising and even seeking opportunities of loving and serving Mother's children.
You are moral, good, rational, harmless etc., that is your first step.It means you are saved from 80 per cent of miseries, that can befall you if you are otherwise. But there are miseries, say, the faithlessness of wife, or sudden death of your only son or the sinking of a Bank in which your monies are deposited . How to meet such shocks ? There is no other healing remedy, except devotion, saint's contact or public service.The last thing means , turning your mind from misery-ful worldly subjects. Saint's contact mostly means self-forgetfulness; whereas devotion means the transferring of heart and head to Divinity itself.
First character, then devotion ( Gauna गौण )and then Divine knowledge; then, the alternate innumerable layers of Service , Bhakti and Gyana ज्ञान , till they interpenetrate, and finally, the Parabhakti पराभक्ती ( Supreme Divine Love ), in which character with action, devotion, and Divine knowledge are all in perfect harmony and of the highest order.
We are here , for explaining the Gnana ज्ञान aspect.Don't bring in Theologies and philosophies. Be extremely practical. Vedantism वेदान्ती and Adwaitism अद्वैती are names intelligible to Hindus alone . What is common to all and of any religion ? It is the annihilation of the mind. This expression is too hard. I would be satisfied with the " the conquest of mind ". I want mind to give me the nectar-sweetness of devotion. It is enough for me if the mind stands up or sit down, as my finger goes up and down. And that is Sadhana साधना , which we are dealing with here.
That you must have the amplest leisure and strongest energy is the first requirement of any Sadhana साधना . Your occupation with worldliness should be the minimum. Start with an antagonistic contradiction of your mind. Rightly or wrongly, just be the opposite side of mind. Mind says ," This dish is tasteful "; you say immediately ," No it is injurious to health ". Your mind talk to you : " Make your senior officer to retire soon ; you will get his post and you will be happier ". You immediately snub your mind with ," No , you fool, have you no idea of or concern of my senior's family ?" Even when mind says true matters , make a practice of your opposite stand . Why do I insist on the opposite stand even when the mind is right ? The mind is an expert cheat. It will carry you by the way along which you will have no objection and it will over topple you in your moment of in-alertness. So let your first practice be to be able to set your mind at defiance.
The greatest benefit of this mental practice is that the mind is not itself happy and ease-ful enough to be sitting on any pleasure for long, to be enamoured thereof and then to pull you in, towards pleasures , with its deceitful pictures of virtue, truth, goodness, duty, respectability etc. For sometime therefore, be a living enemy of your mind . If mind says " Let us go in the north " , you begin to walk in the south and so on , till the mind is finally conquered.
If the mind adjusts your visual angle to think things from your point of view , you begin to see, how matters will start to see in the eyes of your antagonists, others concerned and others unconcerned.
What is the final result ? Nothing takes root, nothing sets in , nothing catches you, nothing entangles you, nothing blindfolds you, nothing sprouts, nothing takes shape, nothing gets firm. Substantially, you are simply shattering whatever come before you good or bad.
Gradually the vision of temporariness dawns . what is this world ? What are so called good or bad things ? Flashlights of four seconds . the whole world is only dream like , nothing of the dream exists, when you wake up. You must have suitable instances before you. You have only some purpose to achieve - to train your mind to be thinking in a particular manner , to get a certain conviction about certain truths.The world has all the things. Take up only what helps you and reject the rest.
Coming next, after temporariness to truthfulness, if you have the highest definition of truthfulness , there is nothing in the world except downright cheating. The highest cheat is your own infatuation and the infatuator. Just be an unconcerned witness, as dry and immovable as a rock and go on studying the world-process of cheating.
The Sadhaka says to himself ," If everything in substance is not what it seems to be on the surface , why not say and believe in general unprecise flinging and partial-truth- speaking manner that the world is unreal ? And why not go a step further and say in a disgustful spirit that the world does not exists at all. Is it anything else than only a bit exaggerated superlative term or expression for 'Temporariness' and 'everchangingness' and 'deceptiveness' ?
Gnanis ज्ञानी have their 'Maya' माया . Devotees have their 'Leela' लीला and worldly people have their 'Prarabdha' प्रारब्ध . All three are different words for one thing alone viz., ," Unknowable ness of the unknown, nameable and thinkable '.
Let us make a definition convenient to us and for our purpose. Let us say, " Whatever is temporary, changing, untruthful, unfruitful, is unreal and non-existent". A little figurative personification and we come to the well-known 'Maya' माया .
Our mind can be trained to think of changefulness and fruitlessness.With changefulness the trust and the faith disappear ; change fulness may sometimes give you a temporary feeling of pleasure, but in absolute weighing, the notion of non-stability results in a disquietude. The pleasure of getting the thing, due to changefulness, has on its reverse side , the painfulness of loosing it. The Sadhaka साधक sees both sides and does not fall a pray.
Mai-ism duly appreciates the indispensability of training the mind of Adwaitistic principles and theories but only in the sense explained. However Mai-ism does not agree with the interpretation of unreality to mean, non-existence .Unrealism in the sense of non-existence, or a delusion, can be accepted only in a figurative or exaggerated sense.Otherwise the whole working of the world will be topsy-turvy. I would venture to state that the unrealism of the Adwaitist is also a temporary accepted mind-belief , for passing through a particular stage. After realism to unrealism, there is again returned to realism. When we reach a stage of a realisation of the highest truth, viz. that every thing is Mother, if Mother exists , everything has also its existence . What is non-existence or unreal is the distinction and difference. Ishwara-Srishti ईश्वर सृष्टी ( God's creation ) is real. Jeeva-Srishti जीव सृष्टी ( soul's creation ) is unreal. The most blessed one who, after passing through the temporarily accepted unrealism, reaches the stage of " Everything is Mother " again return to the belief of Realism.
The WORLD , so often runs to saints for consolation. But her crookedness, selfishness, jugglery, intrigues, falsehoods, faithlessness etc.have fully tired them out. The saints are so much disgusted with her hypocrisy and ungratefulness, that they get terrorized at her very shadow and at her approach. The saints fly away to live in caves, mountains, forests, on riverbanks and on sea-coasts, as far away from her as possible.They make rules and regulations of never touching and seeing the world , women and wealth. If still by chance she comes nearer , they raise a huge cry.
The WORLD once most bitterly wept out her distress to Mother. Said the WORLD," In spite of so many splendors, wealth, education, civilization, learning, this discovery and that discovery of science etc., I am sick at heart, I am miserable . People also talk that the world is full of miseries. " Mother advised, " Why don't you go Saints ? " The crafty reply was," Yes, I like them, I worship them, I follow their teachings , I supply them their requirements. I was once going to them, but they too have fled away. " The game playing WORLD cheated even Mother. She did not breathe a syllable about her own crookedness being the cause of their flying away.
Mother fully knew what was wrong, but after all, the WORLD was Her own Creation and Daughter. She was moved with pity. She thought, " Let Me now create a new type of MOTHERLY SAINTS , saints who do hate , or run away from , or who do not see temptation in world, wealth or woman, saints who do not renounce the world but who remaining therein sacrifice all their for world itself. " She called several high souls. All were shrewd enough to guess the purpose . they knew how terrible and bothersome it was to be the Guru of the WORLD shrew. All escaped; but one , inexperienced layman , half saintly half worldly, a non professional soul was caught in the Mother's net. Mother called Her daughter and with every scolding, advice and warning said," I give you the fittest Guru. It is now up to you, how to make yourself consoled and happy for ever."
Do you think the WORLD, full of so much vice, mischief and evil changed her nature ? No. She had much greater value for the unapproachable , awe-inspiring saints, of whom she would be at least somewhat afraid. This Guru she placed in her pocket and continued her life as before , putting forth the twisted techniques of the new Guru in defense of her still greater increasing waywardness.
The inexperienced semi saint constantly complained to Mother. Mother cooled him down," What have you to do with that ? Why ? Don't you forget all the ill-treatment, slight, ridicule, condemnation and everything in my presence ? Why do mind those things ?Are you not dearest to Me ? Why don't you keep my love to you always before your mind ? Can you not remain in the world itself and yet remain unwet - unwetted, untired , undisgusted ?
One day, timidly and trickily , the semi-saint talked to Mother. " I myself quite immature and imperfect, not even one - tenth of even nominal saints . Your daughter is now quite happy. She is now sufficiently prepared to take care of herself. I may now turn , to the work of furthering my own spiritual progress. " No sooner were these words heard, than Mother's face changed. Said She , " What ? Tricks with me ? Do you dare think, I myself can't make you perfect merely by My Will ? You too want to follow the self-centered selfish spirituality of your predecessors ? "
The semi-saint full of repentance for having broached the subject , full of depression, was merged in despair and was drooping. He began to remember certain facts of his life and his own experiences. He had been to two saints, Sri SAI BABA श्रीसाईबाबा and Sri SWAMI SIDDHARUDHA स्वामी श्री सिध्दारूढ . He had most solicitously prostrated for ' Guru-mantra ' गुरूमन्त्र and ' Diksha ' दीक्षा . He was passed over by both, with, " You have yourself to do a different type of religious work. You can not be given Mantra or Diksha."
On this thought establishing its mastery, in every atom of his brains, the only thing that remained possible for the semi saint was to fall prostrate on the ground before Mother's image . He surrendered himself with an apologetic pledge-bound shouting expression ," Mother ! Thy Will be done. I only beseech Thee. Never forget however weak, wicked, worst I may be , I am for ever Thine ; forget that never ".
The walls echoed. The ' Pancha -Pranas ' पंच प्राण [vital airs] within him, the Shariras पंच शरीर [bodies],and the ' Pancha - Koshas ' पंच कोष [sheaths] echoed. The MERCIFUL MOTHER'S IMAGE echoed : " N E V E R ".
Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai
ABRIDGED MAI-ISM
CHAPTER XII
MAIMILAN BHUKTI MUKATI
JAY MAI JAY MAI JAY MAI
The Founder had an abundant practice of self-control in his college career , which he has so strongly recommends , as indispensable, before a man takes to a religion in all seriousness.The first thing he invites attention to , is the clear constant remembrance , which he had viz., that he was neither the body, nor the senses, nor the mind. He was only a side spectator of all the different plays that were being exhibited on the stage of his individuality , under the rich maintenance and lurid right of his own soul.
Regarding his parents brothers , sisters, wife and children, either he was a guest in midst of them or anyone of them was a guest to him. The Founder's mother so very often scolded him for living in the family as a foreigner full of courtesy, kindness and goodness, but , however, with no attachment or depth of intimate relationship. He neither knew nor played any games. Music, poetry, literature, conversation, discussion , philosophy and religion were the subjects of his pastime. He was extremely intellectually witty and jocular, and it seemed as if he wanted to do nothing else with others , except either to meet for merry-making or to be left to himself.The fun that he would introduce in his talk had very little of worldliness. He was fond of picturing the pettiness and the silliness of human nature. His patent word , for which his father scolded him was " Kachra Peti " or " Kachra Patti " ( Refuse-box or Refuse ). People would be talking with so much interest about worldly matters . He would be in midst of them but mostly absent-minded. His father would cross-question him to ascertain if he had heard what was passing for an hour or two. With a smile he would say , " Kachara Patti " . He meant, " My brain, I do not want to turn a rubbish-depot for the worldly rubbish" He would rarely see his face in a mirror. When scolded for his shabby appearance , he would quote Kabir," What are you looking in the mirror? see therein , whether you are man or monkey ? " The question as to what he ate before going to school, by the school teacher and friends, was the point of great ridicule in his school days. Recently in 1943 , he was moving in the procession of his own son as a bridegroom. Some important officer of a repute , who had also been walking in the procession asked him," Where have we to go ? " He evaded exposure of his ignorance , saying ," At the bride's place ". He was bit nervous , quickly left him and got information from his relative as to the place and the name of the bride etc. He than began to answer and talk over the details. The man smiled and said," I have watched you getting information ".
All this is mentioned here, not as an eulogy , but to give an instruction to an ambitious true spiritual aspirant, as to the extent to which he has to keep in his mind and brain blank, and unburdened' if at all he wants to try for perfection. Founder says," Two things can not occupy the same space."
The Founder often speaks about," Having the maximum energy , maximum leisure, maximum space and maximum lightness in the brain and in the heart. Have the maximum conversation , about every pleasure having its reaction of pain and exhaustion or tiresomeness ".
Your paying off your debts on one side , but incurring new debts of a different nature on the other, takes you nowhere. First plug up the hole, from which water is getting into your boat, and then start the work of removing the already collected waters. First divide your mind two ways .Regarding not incurring additional liabilities, you must be cent per cent active. No more sins , no more vices; no more degenerations.
Don't think even of your good acts and merits. That attachment to the meritorious actions of your will again entangle you. If you are avaricious of getting the fruit of your merit, take my word, you will again be entangled.After kingship as the reward of the merits , comes the hell. After heaven, again one returns to the same rotten human world. So, leave the question of sins and merit and accept only the simplest forms of good actions and bad actions. The Founder sometimes quotes his patent line , which he was repeating at about twenty, near the stony bank counter fort of the river in Poona [Pune], in a Mahadev महादेव मंदीर Temple, on moonlight nights ," Kahan Le Jau Do Gathadi, Khudaki Meher Kafi Hay " - कहा ले जाउ दो गठडी , खुदाकी मेहेर काफी है - ( Where - why - should I carry these two heaviest packets of sin and merits on my head through the unknown tract between this world and beyond ? For me the mercy of God is quite enough.) He had reduced the question of sins and merits to that of bad and good actions and actions pleasing or displeasing to God , elevating or degrading for society and helping and hurting the persons dealt with.
Naturally enough, the departure from the average fundamental Hindu mentality made so much of his burden lightened and disappear. " If by chance if your sacred thread is broken, for the word that you speak and for every step you pace , there is sin. Ant-crushing is sin and burning of germs while you ignite fire for food is sin ". So many sins disappeared from his dictionary.
They have already disappeared for the modern man as well, but in the latter's case, even the religion itself has disappeared.
You first establish a stage by the constant thoughtfulness, association and remembrance of things , when, any bad actions that proceed from you are only because of the hankering for the pleasure delivered out of them, or out of definite wickedness. Let that stage be reached , when you do bad actions , only because you have not been able to resist the temptations. This stage means two things. For you to be systematically arranging an automatic series and a continuity of bad actions becomes impossible. The other thing is , you get hatred for your own self, especially the returns for good actions are not being thought of as stated before. What then remains , is only your sorrow and repentance for bad actions: You feel your are dirt in the Mother's Good Universe ; you are a black sheep; you are a spot on the snow-white Universe of Mother. Where can any ego remain in the mind, which is full of sorrow for bad actions ?
Don't work in desultory unsystematic manner. You make a point say, you want to master your wrathfulness. Let there be a definite programme , say, for such and such period ," I will not simply curb my wrathfulness but invite and create occasions when people would provoke me to wrathfulness ". While you have fixed your programme , let all other things even though of much greater importance , have a quite secondary a place and value. Master it and leave it.
This was one of the innumerable instances of his ' wrathlessness practice '.He was in the college students quarters. Each room would have two students. Due to his absent-mindedness, he would put his clothes on the pegs of his companion, who a bit hot. The Founder was thrice warned , but where can the absent-mindedness go ? One day he put his clothes, dhoti, coat, shirt , cap, as soon a she came in the room after a tiresome outing on the companions peg. The latter flew into anger and threw away all his clothes with a wrathful and forceful insulting fling in to the gutter. The Founder swallowed up the most terrible insult, He told him in the most humiliating tone ," I am sorry; what can I do ? Even tough I try my best, I can not remember your instruction." Not a single line or spake of wrathfulness was there on his face. The companion gradually came down to coolness. As a matter of fact he was shocked to find no quarreling and no bandying of words ; not even a single word. At the end he said," Are you bringing those clothes , or should I bring them ? " The Founder with cool minded said," Let them be there. I have got other spare ones," said the companion," Should I ask our servant to bring them and then send to the washer-man ? " Founder said," Don't worry. Let them lie." After a pause and a bit of repentance , the companion said," On getting them washed, you will of course use it them, is it not ?" Said the Founder," Cease to think about that. Let them lie to their lot. Let us order tea. I have brought a nice packet of biscuits, we shall enjoy ". The companion saw the Founder was resolute and any further talk regarding the clothes would be simply humiliating himself. Of course he refused the biscuits. The clothes were removed by the Bhangi. The crowd of all students was after the Founder, enquiring what had happened ; but he kept mum.
He would do so many things incognito. Once on the Kurduwadi [ कुर्डुवाडी - महाराष्ट राज्य ] station , when the Founder was the chief officer of the Barsi Municipality [ बारसी म्युनसिपालटी ], in about 1916, he was waiting for long hours from evening to catch the Madras Mail arriving at 2 a.m. There was a lady passenger, rather beautiful, with a child. Some railway staff people were constantly eyeing her. They spoke with some words expressing their bad motive and she insulted them. There was a long waiting period. By chance the child eased itself. There was no water. The insulted people made most of the nuisance and harassed her as if some great crime were committed and took her to the station master.Soon there was a crowd.The crowd , with the station master and with her as a criminal was brought by them to the spot, to show the nuisance. They were all surprised. There was nothing. Someone has cleaned it off, with a big woolen muffler in a wintry night, which was seen thrown away at along distance. None knew the sweeper.
The Founder says," You must plunge into places of poverty and misery incognito, in torn cloths and study and share their miseries.You must utilise big crowds in processions and temples, to get insulted and ridiculed. The Founder to overcome nervousness and over-regard for the opinion of the society, once moved in a procession over a big round , putting on purposely selected torn and dirty clothes and sitting in an extremely dirty carriage. Those who recognised him and those who did not know him, all called him mad and laughed. To him it was a practice at 18, of overcoming the nature of servility for popular opinion. A regular programme, practice and a subtle watching of thoughts and feelings , to ascertain how far the mind and the egoistic pride or a certain vice is subdued, is an important requirement . It is in the circumstances of self-invited humiliation alone , that one day, your heart breaks to pieces on realisation of Mercy, that Mother has showered on you.
You have to actually pass through practices. Practically a life of some few years with decided programmes of the specimen given. Any amount of good thoughts , do not help you.They have their own value, when the mind is brought to a certain pitch of deeper receptivity.Please note an extremely subtle fact; the mechanical fact that you have and passed through certain practices gives you nothing. What you permanently gain is what your mind has received deepest indentations of, by way of an invisible asset, while passing through ordeals, mostly self invited.
When you have reached a stage when sinful pleasures are not acceptable to you, you have to pass great period of relish-less deadened life , as you are neither here nor there. The worldly sensual pleasures, especially sinful, you have banished and the other pleasures of devotion and divine knowledge have not dawned. That period is the most sickening and suicide suggesting period. While on one side , you are on the side type of Sadhana साधना , you should also be developing your relations with your God and Guru. You will then have the relief and a different world to derive your pleasure from the Love and Service , Devotion and Self-surrender to your God and Guru.
The last straw that break the camel's back is the wiping out of the sexual notion. You can train up your mind to be smiling with a mastered wrathlessness, you can be well contented in midst of any poverty; you can reach a stage when no desires make any agitation in your heart; you may rise above the idea of name and fame; you can be as humble as a straw; you may even bless even your enemy; but certain things are most difficult. These are : (1) Proof-ness to sexual attraction, the wiping out of the sexual notion itself.(2) Infatuation ( moha मोह ) . (3) Proofness against final subtle most delusion spread over you by Maya माया and (4) Life-clinging. Infatuation in its highest sense is, by its definition itself, beyond the possibilities of the control of mind. Such infatuations do come and only the Divine Will of the Mother's Grace decides when they would disappear. No human effort can be of any avail. The cases of Moha मोह ( Infatuation ) and Maya माया are beyond our ken. They are some special divine arrangements for some special purposes.
Let us therefore stop with with sexual-attraction-proofness. There too nothing can be done without Mother's perfect Grace.Mother however does arranges matters . High souls can train up themselves with Mother's and Guru's Grace , to remain as unruffled as before a lifeless wooden bench with a lady's picture carved thereon.This process however so difficult to manage , as, unlike all previous practices , it is not one-sided mono practice. in most cases it is dangerous practice, unless Mother herself manages every detail.It can only be a perfect Guru in the shape of a lady that has also the fullest control over practitioner , his mind and body, if he at all slips. She must have strength to save him and pull him out,if on the point of sinking. Such guru Mother alone can depute, but She odes it is certain.
Therefore under Mai-ism the most difficult examination has been treated rather leniently and it should be enough that man passes with grace marks. It is enough that the man is true to his wife and that he gets money honestly in fair ways, and that he makes it a point to spend a certain proportion of his wealth for deserving religious charitable purposes.
Mai-ism is for using the terms " Money-greed and sexual lustfulness " and not the centuries old expressions " Kanaka कनक and Kantaa कांता " or " Kaanchan कांचन and Kaamini कामिनी ". It is not the woman that is the source of temptation, but it is the lustfulness in man. Mai-ism thinks it is an ungratefulness to denounce the sex of Man's mother, sister and daughter. A woman is in no way a grater degrading force than man.
Mai-istic eye towards woman is not that of chivalry and appreciation of beauty, engaging manners, softness, tenderness and sexual sentiments or emotions. It is not again that of vengeance towards man , in return of the man's subjugation of woman in the past. Mai-istic eye is that of mercifulness, sacrificing , service-fulness and sacredness of mother.As between man and woman, Mai-ism wants to develop true understanding of mutual indispensability and incompetitive co-operative spirit of reciprocal love and service. The question of superiority, equality and inferiority is entirely irrelevant.Mai-ism wants man to love and serve all women and not of any particular relationship or category alone.
Just as love and service have been there , but not religionised , so also , it is not that the idea of looking upon woman as mother is not there , but it has not been religionised . Mai-ism religionises Love and Service and the trying of one's best to look upon very woman as mother.
Mai-ism most emphatically states , rules for morality are for the development and control of one's self and for imposition on and accusation of others.
Rise above prejudicial routine religious mentalities and ways of looking and judging and dealing with things. Seek and follow the spirit.It is the sexual attraction itself that has formed a prominent element of the Divine Arrangement of ameliorating souls of both sexes.It is only the abuse of attraction that is responsible for any disastrous evils. At least these can not be evaded by denunciation and flying away. How far can you run away from woman ? You have to conquer your lustfulness, by deep thinking, constant memory, cautious alertness,creating relishlessness and hard practice of self-control, with the temptation itself in your front and with mother's Mercy and Guru's Grace.
There is an invisible long warfare in the progress path of every soul, of an Infatuating power and a Resisting -power. a success or a failure in any particular case prove nothing in absolute terms. A resistance power of 2000 units will vanquish an infatuating power of 1000 units and will have amoral victory, but the very same units power will suffer a humiliating defeat at the hands of 5000 units infatuating power. There is no greater delusion than to call as victorious one who had no foe or a negligible foe , to fight. The final achievement is the resistance power . Power of how many units is the test. And that sadhana of a man has in its requisite, the training of a Motherliness-seeing eye. Looking from the higher plan, it is wrong even to imagine infatuating power with woman and to identify resistance power with man. Man have no idea of woman's mental and emotional world.
Motherliness seeing annihilates lustfulness , because of the working of so many associations and emotions, so very familiar to man. The sublimity of the ideal is that not only man is saved from the feeling of hating woman, but there is a germination of positive factor viz., love of the type one bears to one's mother.
Each sex has its own best or worst qualities and agreeabilities and living conditions. The soul in the body of a man or a woman has no sex; and any soul takes one sex form or another, according to the need of developing certain qualities and paying off Prarabdha debts. Under Mai-ism, man has no superiority over woman either from the point of Soul-evolution or worthiness and receptivity for religiosity or spirituality or in the matter of securing Mother's Grace. Mai-ism means an equal religious recognition of both sexes.
" No belittling; no blaming, no blasphemy, no hating and no evading woman " is the Mai-istic teaching. A whole heartened effort has been made many saints to create a nauseating sense by referring to dirty constituents as scum, phlegm, mucus, bile, urine , blood, pus etc. That is also way, but quite at an elementary stage. Infatuation arises not simply out of physical beauty or the bodily charm and only as a hunger for corporeal enjoyment. Perhaps the underlying wisdom of the teaching is : " If all your discrimination has extinguished, at least stop before and desist from Physical action ".
" Kill your desires " is therefore the second teaching. Not simply the desire of sexual connection but kill all desires. Reduce the sum total of all your desires.
When the sum total of desires goes down, the infatuation, the temptation, and even the value of wealth and woman, go down.
Let us think of the third stage :and please note that as Dwaitism and Adwaitism are not different schools , but the latter is continuation of the former , so here, too,any higher stage is attainable only after the lower stage is gone through, even though for an extremely short period and most progressively. After ' not hating and evading ' ( first stage ), ' Killing all desires ' ( second stage ), comes the third stage : " Why not ask Mother to kill the demon for you ? You be doing what mother bids you to do , but let Mother kill the demon ". That is the secret of secrets and remedy of remedies and that is Mai-ism.
Next fourth stage.Don't entertain inimical feelings even for your foibles. Deal with them gently, but resolutely, successfully and conqueringly. Beside the laborious way of killing desires though Gnana, there is the further devotional way of love and sweetness all around with non-attachment and surrender. When you become inmate of Mother's Mansion and a child of a Royal palace , you are safe.
In the normal course, without special effort and practice one can come to a high level of character ; but at a higher stage, he requires God , Guru, Divine Knowledge , devotion , religion etc. for these reasons. So often the turn of circumstances shows, as if the world were seeking out good and virtuous men to be easiest victims of their exploitation. There are so many miseries for which a good man is not responsible . After several sad experiences he concludes, there is something higher than mere acquisition of virtues, strong character and goodness. He sees vast difference between man and man. He has become an inmate interested with Universe and whole humanity. He studies stages of evolution of men.
The first stage man is happy. If he gets bodily happiness and attaches highest value thereto. that is only avenue of happiness to him.
The second stage man wants the pleasures of his organs of action and sense in addition to what the first stage man wants.
The third stage man wants intellectual pleasure as well.
The fourth stage man wants the pleasures of heart and sublime emotions as well.
The fifth stage man wants the pleasures of the highest type of philosophy, spirituality and religiosity, in which God, Guru, Self, Religion, Universe etc. the major-most elements , have their highest part and play.
The advance man realises the importance of the training of the mind.He takes it up, and there the street man and the higher man come in. There the distinction of sinlessness and sinfulness, good and evil, truth and falsity,action and inaction, righteousness and wickedness, all get in before him, with their so many different shades and various coloured illuminations.
For the man who is seriously intent upon making a substantial progress , guidance and grace of Guru, Mother's Mercy and the most intimate and subtle knowledge of spiritual lore become indispensable. Guru will lead you to Mother. Mother will send you back to the Guru and by repetitions of such alternate swinging , you would be rising higher and higher.
God, Guru and Disciple are practically one . Guru-Shishya relationship is a personal one of love, service, devotion and surrender.Guru in the real sense can not at time more than one. Guru's Grace is to be understood exactly like the grace marks in an examination. the minimum should always be there , to justify the grace marks being given. Love, faith and one-ness are the main requisites for the best results of the relationship.
The most practical definition of Guru in this age of greatest struggle is this. He is your guru, from whom, you get teachings about approaching Almighty, whose given Mantra you repeat , to whom you fly for spiritual help and Divine consolation and by whose hand placed on your head you feel blessed. There are no registration offices for , and no documents of , guru- disciple relationship. It is true living in day to day life of that relationship, that does the work and that is indispensable. The nature and extent of mutual dealings decide the nature of relationship; not mere words and mere appearances.
Oneness with reference to which there is the greatest ignorance, light - heartedness or duplicity, even in high-class educated devotional circles, Mai-ism emphasises. One God, one Guru, one Method, one Mantra, one Scriptural Authority and one Guide - has its own wonderful working force , which few can realise. There is a living psychological working underneath which very few can see, and which is an indispensable requirement for Sadhana. Tulsidas and Meerabai never bowed their heads to any other incarnations of the very same God, save and except the one they were worshipping , although it would be foolishly ridiculous to suppose that the sameness was not known to them. A lover of God or Guru says," I will starve but won't beg anyone except my own beloved Mother ". A still higher lover is more forceful and he says," Does not Mother know that I am starving ? Is She not ashamed to bring me down to beg of Her ? " A yet higher lover says, with every cheerfulness ," Let Her please Herself My love and surrender will not budge an inch."
You can not be tolerated putting your wedding diamond ring in the box meant for your shoes, shaving materials and pant-clips. This love between a Devotee and a Deity , or between Guru and Shishya is of an extremely high voltage and its action and also reaction is of wonderfully supreme nature. You are sure to repent if you trifle therewith. Nothing is more punishable in God's eyes than ' Guru-droha ' ( Faithlessness or treachery to the Guru ). Some truths are truths for all times. Let us however take recent instances and experiences.
A Guru had an extremely pet Shishya , staying with him since childhood. The Guru left no occult or divine art or mantra or science, untaught and nothing of his personal life unfold. The Guru had negative imperfection. The devotional world around , cherished and spread the belief that their Maharaj lived on milk and fruit only.The consensus became too strong which impelled him to revere and accept this fanciful , popular idea and the Guru began to take his meals at midnight unknown to all except the disciple. Said he," I need not break their faith and love. I am not harming anyone directly. If anyone directly puts me the question, I will never tell a lie." The popularity increased , leaps and bounds , but the Satan of jealousy crept his way into the heart of the Shishya. On a suitable huge night festival, the Shishya saw an opportunity for the Guru's exposure and ground-dusting his Guru in midst of vast crowds. He put an agitating powder in his food which excited vomiting and on such vomiting , brought forth all the substance eaten.The Shishya furtively invited the attention of some ; and the talk, with amazement, ridicule and contempt spread like a wild-fire. The Guru was stunned and saw through the mischief . Said he cool mindedly to the Shishya , almost weeping , " My child , what you have done ? If you had only breathed a word to me , I would have left this disciple world to you, as my successor and would have gone away somewhere. Confess immediately. My forgiving is already there. I am not wrathful but broken-hearted. I will be left alone in my old age. Speak, Oh speak out, earliest in time , so that God's wrath may not overtake you. Little time is left for me and for you to pray together to move our Deity to forgive you ". The Shishya was however overwhelmed and could not decide all at once how to act. The greater his Guru pressed the point with feverish haste , the greater was his confusion , obstinacy and petrifaction. Immediately after an hour , the Shishya had a painful vomit and he suddenly died of heart-failure. The Guru wept immensely beating his breast and forehead all the way to the " Smashaan Yaatraa " स्मशान यात्रा ( funeral procession ). He left the place all at once and retired in the deepest solitude., in one of the caves in the banks of the sacred river [ Narmada नर्मदा ] with a life-long resolution, never to entertain any Shishya and never to be the Guru of any shishya.
Mankind is usually selfish. Where there is just ordinary merry-making while going crowd saints , men are as loud as hawkers. where something substantial is to be gained as from true saints and true Gurus , they do not want competitors and sharers . Spiritual jealousy religious passion of monopolisation , preclusion of all others desirous of approaching a true Saint or a Guru, and even the displeasure at the idea of one's own Guru getting more and more popular , are all at least imaginable things for the modern man , with no knowledge an depth about the unknown waters of the Guru - Shishya , or deity - devotee love relationship. The greatest of the world's folly is seen , when it judges a saint's true worth by uncontrollable rush of visitors and heaps of garlands. Be on the safe side. Surely over crowded saint is a high saint, but don't reject the saintliness that you see in some obscure saint, simply because there is no astounding paraphernalia around him. Your decision about a jewel should not be based on the jewel box.
Every saint is by himself a spiritual lake and the healthiness or unhealthiness of the waters depends on the all told cumulative degree of purity or impurity of its residents and users ; the saint himself remains an uncontaminable Lotus Leaf. Deity's , Saint's or Guru's Grace is like an overflow in a canal with slopes on both sides , over which dry stones are lying for years, with Love and Service to God , Guru and Saint. Greater the volume of Grace , the greater the height of the deluged slope, stones lying whereon get wetted and transformed. Nearer to the bottom a stone on the slope is, the quicker the chance for the stone to be transformed. A still higher relationship is there , when the Shishya surrenders himself to the Guru , remaining in the constant contact , when the Guru is so much moved with the love and service of the Shishya , he actually sits down with the chisel and a hammer, to caret his own image on the individuality of his Shishya . Rarest cases.
We have practically finished with the training of mind and we broach the subject of still higher nature - the nature of man.
All best things said and done , man is the production and development of elements that have their limits, exhaustions, reactions and situations of helplessness. man is surely Divine , but never forget, only potentially. Man shows climaxes of virtues temptation-proofness, but there is a limit. On degeneration determined forces getting stronger, the imitation gold begins to show. An artificial effort , a substantial watchful untiring force has been always required to maintain the highest level.
Man may attain superman-ship, but infallibility ? I doubt. Man is not made up of such elements as know no deterioration and no decay. Today he is in pit of ignorance. Tomorrow he raises himself to the highest point of Divine Knowledge. If an effort is required to rise, an effort is also required not to fall.There is no absolute risenness with an absolute infallibility. There is however a stage , just like that of a dry coconut, entirely separated from its outer shell and touching the shall at no point- a perfect whole without a crack or speck. That stage is possible for fewest blessed, but don't confuse matters . At that stage , a man is neither a man nor even a superman , but a Jivan -Mukta जीवनमुक्त . The man is then no man, not even a superman.He is purely , then disentangled soul, with absolutely no connection and not eve the earthly consciousness of his body , mind, heart, head or soul. Till that stage of a complete transformation is there , the fallibility is there.
And here comes the importance of Mai-ism.It says ," It is alright , you may goon with the hardest struggles to train your mind as described before , but that is all laborious. surely do it. You have to do it, but your task will be facilitated to an unimaginably great extent, if from the very start you undertake it, with Guru's Grace and Guidance and with Mother's Mercy, at your beck and call.The progress rate will be still greater, if you also develop your loving nature, loving Guru , God and God's children.
It is hidden great truth, which Mai-ism relies upon and emboldens it to regard vice and virtue, self control etc. to be secondary and even dispensable, if the Love is developed to a wonderful strength and in the right direction.
Few people understand why in Mai-ism , Love is so much valued and why the first requirement is " Love all ".
All goodness, happiness and peace of mind results from Love - Love of all different selves in and with Mother and one's own self. It is Love that develops a particular admirable emotion , character and behaviour. Love helps, give, prays, feels grateful, appreciates and returns, give and shares. Love results in trust, faith, cheerfulness, contentment, forbearance . magnanimity, mercy, forgiveness, confidence, honesty , dignity, charity etc.
Love is liking, being attracted to, feeling pleasure in, being ready to sacrifice for, , wishing to be nearer to , burning withe desire of embracing and being embraced by, absorbing and being absorbed in, pulling and being pulled in by intense living. Love has its symptoms : Mahatva महत्व , Mamatva ममत्व , Sankocha-Rahitva संकोचरहित्व , Sevaa सेवा , Samaagama समागम and Samarpana समर्पण [ Overvaluing, felling of myness, non-difference feeling, service, desire of constant contact and self-surrender ].
Love is levelisation. Love is the root of all virtues and the sacrificing struggle for realisation of unity. Love has its own limitlessness, mysteriousness and miraculousness. Love is strength , fearlessness and regenerativeness. Love is humility, patience , forbearance and endurance. Love is the power of fulfilling and conquering. Love is the power of expansion and transformation . Sublimation of love secures Salvation.
If there are two words which the Founder recommends the most , they are Karunaa करूणा [ mercifulness, pity, forgivefulness and forbearance ] and Akartritvam अकर्तुत्वम [ the belief : I am not the doer, I am nothing myself, much less the actor ].
Regarding Karunaa, the Founder's daily prayer to Mother is ," I have grown up to be what I am , by the mercifulness of the world and one and all helped me.It is purely only out of Thy Majestic Mercifulness, that I have got Thee as my Mother.Let it therefore be , by Thy Grace, that even though my act of any mercifulness involves me in any distress or misery right unto death, my mercifulness does not waver a whit. "
Pray to Mother Mai." I do not want riches, nor pleasures, nor do I ask from Thee, the boon of being exempted from all miseries of so many lives to come. What I want is that the afflictions and the torments of the worldly people be reduced , on their talking to Thy speediest path of Love, Service, Devotion and Surrender." Say to Mother,"Let me only devoted to Thee, resorting to Thee, and enjoying the happiness of serving Thee and Thy children."
While Karunaa करूणा and Akartutvam अकर्तुत्वम् are being recommended to the spiritual aspirant, there are points of rebellious disobedience and intellectual dissent. " What an impracticable advice! " In the first place don't associate with bad men. If you are conscious of your vow not to be merciless, your natural instinct places a barrier on your association with bad people. You form your circle of the most virtuous friends. Second thing, although there is rottenness all around us and although we surely stand the chance of being sufferers still on minutest observation , it will be seen that there is something within the heart of worst men and some another thing within the heart of the most innocent and virtuous man which both go to help the virtuous defenseless. Have you not found in ordinary life how many man desiring to hurt you gets unnerved and confused because you don't give him any cause whatever to pick up a quarrel ? He may yet start quarreling, but it requires him to invoke stronger brutality. Have you ever observed that a certain atmosphere established by you of a certain courteousness by yourself respecting others and showing kindness, make any one who is intent upon polluting that atmosphere , most uneasy ? That invisible Divine influence is much deeper than usually thought . There is a Divine protection for the virtuous and innocent. Although it is not that the protection is full and ever , that there is pretty strong protection is fact of certainty observed and experienced.
I have been merciful to Thy children, as far as I can ; be therefore also, Thou merciful " is the Mai-istic attitude.
A devotional bird pair on a tree, was under calamity, above and below. A hawk above and a hunter below with his arrow aimed. How can Mother save ? a serpent came out from a hole near the hunter and gave the sting. The hunter died and the discharged arrow killed the hawk. Mother's ways of protection are unknown to us. People must have eyes and brains. Such wonderful experiences are met with, even in daily life.
Self-surrender of the distressed is a case of Artaprapatti अार्तप्रपत्ती . Against this no hypocrite of Nishkama Bhakti निष्काम भक्ती ( devotion without desire ) should take objection, unless he is really a theoretical Pandit पण्डीत ( scholar ) . Mai-ism admits and accepts Sakama Bhakti सकाम भक्ती ( Devotion with desire ) , or better still, it concedes and changes the definition of ' Necessities ' and ' desires ' .The Bhakti is Sakama ( with desire ) or Nishkama ( without desire ) , not by the point blank fact of making or not making a demand. The demand may be for a necessity or a desire. A necessity is something which you can not pull on without, and which not only you but all around you, would call a reasonable necessity. Under Mai-ism the demand for necessity is not Sakama सकाम. It is only variety of Artaprapatti.
There are two other issues which decide the nature to be the one or the other. According as you remain agitated or unagitated , always occupied or least occupied with anxiety about the thing demanded an according as how you take the consequences in case the demand is not fulfilled, your Bhakti is Sakama or Nishkama.
Everything depends , on what you make your God to be to you, and your relationships with your God and your stage. If God is Mother to you , then, there is no meaning in the belief of pleasing Her , with a loveless sycophant's servile recitation of Her virtues and glories in an intellectual ornamental manner. None acts that way with one's own Mother .There is every right for a child to demand enough food to satisfy hunger and to be protected against actual calamities and to demand and enforce Her not leaving you during your illness and hardest calamities. To be running to Her and weeping out all ebullitions of one's grief in Her lap; to be making every confession of one's folly and misdeed with every confidence or fearlessness; to be seeking protection and to be praying to be accepted , however wicked : - this is every child's claim on Mother. Your rights and claims on your Mother are proportionate to and based on your love, service , devotion and surrender to Her as your Mother.
Thus in a word , it is not for you to weigh justice, while you live the life of mercifulness to one and all. You have surely to suffer in some cases, but you have all along the protection of the Divine Mother and the neutral world. Take now the other view. Even as it is , for a man of a spiritual aptitude , how poor is his brutal strength to hold his own against the wicked world ? Why not then make a virtue and a claim of what people call a weakness ?
Regarding Akartritvam अकर्तुत्वम [ non-doership], ( KARTRITVA-BHAAVANAA-VIHINATVAM कतृत्व-भावना-विहीनत्वम ) , the irreligious man jumps and pounces and argues : " In that case we are not responsible for all wrong, bad and sinful acts that we do ".
If you want to be really great , create the intermediate mentality : " All my good actions are by Mother, all my bad actions are mine ". There are three mentalities for the spiritual aspirant in this connection. First," I am responsible for the good and bad actions ", Second, " Whatever defective things are done , are done by me, whatever good is done by me is due to promptings of Mother ". Third , " Whatever I do good or bad , that I do as prompted by Mother ". If one has arrived at the third stage , by actual wading through the experiences , by the time he reaches that stage , all evil tendencies and passions have subsided or even vanished ."
If you have honestly reached that stage ,' When you believe that every thing is done by you on prompting from Mother, you soon get suspicious , about your wrong thoughts desires and actions as Mother can not be prompting you to do evil things . Evil suggestions and decisions can not be but yours.Suppose you have begun developing the idea that you are merely the instrument and that therefore you have left off all your censorship of your thoughts and actions. Further suppose by the remotest chance that some undesirable actions pass through your hands; in that particular case, if you are true to your belief , you have no right to question " Why ", when you have to suffer. If your that action is of Her own will , your suffering also of Her will.
Akartritvam ( non-doership ) should not mean hand-folded sittingness, irresponsibility for bad actions or injustice crying about punishment for the same. And that is so because in fact, in the womb what appears to us as a complete non-doership, there has been always invisible sub-consciousness of doership.
In religious true understanding , there are so many seeming confusions and contradictions , which are removable only by the Unseen hand , that works wonders with an extremely delicate working , which laughs at the human limitations of cause and effect, logic and reason , experiment and conclusion , proof and judgement.
The whole indefiniteness of our religious thinking arises as under : 1] Opposites often lie interpenetrating 2] All our judgement are relative 3] The full data are never before us. 4] We always think with preconceived mind. 5] We are pulled away to one extremity or another. 6] So many truths can never be realised without actual experience etc.
Each teaching has its own relative value, for a particular mentality at a particular stage and at a particular moment. A layman finds contradictions because whereas all the teachings are huddled up in a book or a talk a few hours , his mind can not transform itself to see the consequential order between the seemingly contradictory things . whenever you have religious difficulties, the best thing is to try to solve them yourself. Mostly you will succeed in finding the true solution. If you don't then place your difficulty before your Guru maintaining every decorum and delicacy with your humility approach and respectful loving attitude. When God's Grace opens up your eyes , Guru's one word becomes more than sufficient with illumination.
Hence , Mai-ism insists God and Guru both, neither God alone , nor Guru alone. It is the spiritual Chaitanya that alone works . The spirit flows from God to Guru and from Guru to Shishya.
Teaching varies not only from one teacher to another, but from the same teacher to one man or another, not only that, but from the same teacher to the same man , according he is at one stage or another after some progress. The underlying truth is the aspirant is gradually led from on stage to another.
Instead of spending our life in a foolish impulsive way it is desirable to follow the Guru's teachings of "Be doing righteous actions " and of " Don't leave your duties ". We should not forget that we can not remain silent or action less even if we so determined.
But when we see the fruit which we believe to be the result of our action is adverse , we get despondent, sorrowful and dis-spirited.Here the Guru holds us up by giving us a second teaching . He says," You can't keep up your working vigourousness without the idea of fruit., and there is no certainty that every good action if yours will be unfailing crowned with a good result.The best mid-way therefore , is that you continue to have the consciousness of the fruit, but you dedicate away that fruit to God. " Doing once duties leaving the fruit as dedicated to God is a satisfactory and countable stage.
But the aspirant can not all the time remain satisfied , with a stop there. He gradually entertains a desire to pass from the realm of action into that of inaction.He gradually practices the renouncing the idea not only of the fruit but also the ownership and authorship and thereafter the memory of action. Gradually he begins feeling," I can do nothing ". And finally believing " I am nothing ". He has to remain yoked to action, even while advancing in stages till actions leave him. The religious alchemy is " dis-interested and God dedicated action " Be doing action ,yet don't permit its actionness to degenerate you, that requirement is secured through God-dedication."
On the soul reaching the higher stage, it is yet kept linked up with action. Then nothing can be so agreeable as taking up the work of public religious welfare . Finally a time comes , when the highly advanced soul's devotion and desirelessness and the consciousness of nothingness becomes so very overpowering, that it is impossible for him to do any miscellaneous inferior duties. It is only when that stage is reached that the teaching about ' Remain absorbed in Me " becomes applicable.
This is only a rambling specimen of various kinds of weavings that can be made out of religious highest truths.
Man with all his boasts of Science with microscopes etc. has yet remained blind and his blindness is endless. Till now, man has not been able to bring peace , happiness or goodness. Evil has not been eradicated. Founder says," Take therefore the cash and let the credit go." Live your life as straight as you can, conquer your mind . You have to practice theses principles of Love and Surrender with Service and Devotion spread around you with a universal outlook.
Regarding Akartritvam , let your prayer be : I know neither virtue nor vice , nor I can withstand the falling into the clutches of the latter. My only consolation is that I have burnt out all my egoism of being the actor and developed my faith in believing ," I am doing what thou drivest me to do."
On 2 - 7 - 1943 , in Hubli the lady whom the Founder had accompanied to Ramanashram, was discussing the subtle-most subject of Sakama Bhakti. Said the Founder," not only begging is bad , but the very offering of the demand prayer , in the first place means, you are discrediting Mother with not being able to know what is passing in your mind.Further, if you are a devotee yourself , you are discrediting Mother with a bankruptcy of Mercifulness. When we are praying with a demand we exhibit our ignorance , distrust and funkiness from self-surrender. When we are meditating, we are pulling the Formless and Attributes Mother , to be having form and attribute. When we are reciting hymns , we are trying to limit and deform the indescribable Mother.When we say, we are going to Mother, we are denying Her omnipresence. A true devotee of a Divine Knowledge is only in a whirlpool, what to consider ' as ought to be done '.
" I only pray to Mother in that stage of helplessness, thus : " Take my mind to be Thy weakest child. Let my body be Thy temple , consider my any words to be Thy prayers , consider my walking moment to be the holy Pradakshinaa प्रदक्षिणा circumscribing around Thee. Consider my any enjoyment to be an offering to Thee. "
" Sharanaagati " शरणागती ( Surrender ) and Mother's Karunaa करूणा ( Mercifulness showering ) are one - exactly balanced. One thing is the other side of the other. MAI SHARANAAAGATI KARUNAA EKA माई शरणागती करूणा एक Self-surrender is the bedrock of Mother's religion. Self-surrender means " Thy Will, and my joy in seeing that Thy Will is fulfilled". Outwardly it is below all merit, but inwardly , the most efficacious remedy. As a matter of fact self surrender is an independent royal way as good as Karma, Gyana, Bhakti or Yoga.
It is interesting to see the alliedness of Self-surrender and Adwaitism. Popular adwaitism means a belief of unreality, non-existence. Mai-istic positive of Sharanagati is not a disbelief of the Existence or a Delusion, but the training of the mind to remain uninfluenced , as if nothing existed independent of Mother's Will.
Nothing can' be neglected . They form the basis for the realisation of 'Everything'. Let therefore the Impersonal God be thought of after you have attained Personal God. Let Adwaitism be pursued after the attainment of perfection achievable through Dwaitism.
As I grew up in years , I realised my folly raising cries in wilderness and pouring nectar over barren lands. I feel like a scientific musician, singing behind a drop scene , unseen,and unseeing , who after exhaustion on doing his best, has found there is not a single soul as the listener or the audience. The songster is not be blamed because when he passed in through the theater compound, he had seen vast crowds. The songster laughs at his own delusion of mistaking the pin-drop silence ( a result of absence of listeners ) for supreme appreciation by a large audience. Anyway the songster is none the less happy. mother has heard him and accidentally all the songs were psalms to Her. He has served Mother and that is the fullest recompense any pigmy man can aspire to.
Mother ! I find no place for me to lay my head in peace. " In my Mother's lap " was the first lecture given on the opening of the MOTHER'S LODGE. Service, surrender, with love and devotion, to the one finalmost Thee, Thy pets and Thy children of humanity, is the only remedy. I have no craving for that infatuating word "Religion" with so many prejudices attached thereto. Let the world talk of Mai-ism as a remedy and not as a religion.
Not a single day has passed, when I have not asked myself, " For whom have I been writing ? " and I have no answer.I have been only serving my most beloved Mother, to give a joy of mother enamoured idiotic child.
My mania is over. I might have hurt many. I assure all those hurt, that I have no personal ill-will, either to moderners or to bigoted to followers of Adwaitism or of followers of different saints or with those infatuated with the ways of western living or scientists , atheists or the holiest but narrow-minded orthodox people. I myself am the scion of a most orthodox Brahmin family, but I am a conglomerate of scattered bits of all varieties. In my college days, being fond of inverting things , I interpreted ," Mukam Karoti Vaachaalam " मुकं करोती वाचालम् reversely and prayed to Mother," Oh Mother I want that Grace which will make me mute of chatter-box ".
My last words for my sister and brothers : So long as you have the worshipful reverence for your saints, devotees and Gurus it does not matter,if you have none for images , scriptures, temples, pilgrimage places and none for your traditions , costumes and defined ways of living ; so long as your hearts , even though temporarily and only when overpowered with misery, turned towards Saints and Devotees, so long as you have a feeling of having been blessed on prostration to living Gurus , Saints and Devotees, all the spiritual victories and finally to be won for you.
You can be happy provided you have decided to make others happy. There is no other way. Spirit is more powerful than matter. There is some inexplicable working which is making a man full of love and devotion and service , least liable , not only to disturbances from the world , but to diseases, physical irregularities and various indispositions. So to say, on leading that sort of life , you become unapproachable to evils and unassailable by rude attacks of injurious men, hard situations an disagreeable circumstances. Something generates in you which gives you an invincible power , not only intellectual, moral, religious but the very physical power of the body itself. You don't contract disease ; an dis you do, you recover much sooner. You have the fewest enemies; you have the smallest perplexities of life. Believe that your happiness and misery solely depend you. And what is your equipment for highest happiness and minimum of misery ? Your virtuous life , non-attachment and celibacy on the one hand , and your devotion and surrender to God on the other , with love and service.
Superior devotees , during their hours of communion with God get a promise-ful boon from their believed Deity. It is that a particular mode of approach and worship and a particular compilation of praiseful expression will move a particular manifestation of God to the maximum. The modern man asks ," Why that preferential treatment ? ". For instance ," Why Markand Mai ? and why not G -Mai ? "was once an unnerving question. What answer can the Founder give ? Founder silenced the questioner, on owing defeat ," Yes, She is G -Mai ". Few days passed. G would repeat Jay Mai and not Jay Markand Mai. Once he had high fever. Having failed to get any relief , he began repeating Jay Mai; absolutely no relief ; he saw a faint figure of Mother who said," My son's name is much dearer to me than my own name ". The man repeated the whole Mantra " JAY MAI JAY MARKAND MAI "; he had normality within a wonderfully short time. This is the experience known to the Founder in the year before 1935. The man wrote a letter about his illumination and sorrow for his past impudence.
To return to our subject: a particular set up of a particular worship method, or a prayer or a Mantra or a Sadhana, in every smallest detail has the unique advantage of innumerable multiplications , from age to age and man to man. The verbatim and literatim sameness , is the greatest point.There is a certain sacredness and superbness and pureness ; there remains no room for the smallest doubt or discussion about the purity and intactness. A particularly worded and a particularly detailed prayer or a worship, as once for all settled between a devotee and a particular Deity, invokes the attention of Deity.It puts the Deity in sweetest memory of the Deity's relationship with a certain devotee. There is earth and sky difference between being addressed as " You , so and so " and " You, Mother of So and So " . The Deity makes the good the first promise given; the deity stirred up to grant the most immediate fulfilment of the desires of prayer-offerers and name-repeaters.
Universal Divine Mother has made a Nimitta , a namesake instrument of Mai-Markand to declare MAI-ISM. Mai Markand is 300 % aware of his incapacity and so he tells Mother, " Which devil is going to hear to me ? The only possible way is that you should be showering Mercy and Grace on who-so-ever approaches you through " Mother's Message ", " Mai Sahasranama " or " Mai-ism ".
Followers of Mai-ism should form their preliminary ideas first from " Mother's Message " and should thereafter go through the present book. If you have been attached to your Guru and Mother, you may undertake the repetition of " Mai-Markand - Ardha-Sahasranama ". It is the finest essence of five hundred names of the Sahasranama , as dictated in 1949 by Mother during communion , for advanced disciples who have established long-durated Guru-Shishya relationship.
For worldly man and woman, I recommend nothing so emphatically as Service and Surrender. Serve your parents, serve your Guru , serve your god,, serve your wife , children , friends , relations , serve your neighbours , serve all.No technique is required therein. Mother Herself will lift you up. Mother has promised. And that is Mai-ism.
Once a Master was training his disciple in Sharanagati; the Shishya had great aptitude. After twelve years , it once happened that the Guru was out, and on prayer, the Divine Tripura Sundari appeared before the Shishya . Said She," I am pleased with your devotion, ask any boon. I would grant you even the final emancipation on your passing away". The disciple wanted not to be any the least immature disciple of his master; he wished for the glorification of the master on having trained up a worthy disciple. With this mental working, the disciple in all humility said," Oh Merciful Mother, it is majestically Merciful of Thee to grant me salvation. But I would rather prefer hell, if by my suffering, others can be saved.". Mother blessed him with highest happiness and disappeared. On Master's arrival, the disciple joyfully narrated the event. Said the Master, striking his hand against the forehead, " My twelve years labour over you has been wasted. Who are you to say 'give me hell' to save others ? You have not yet fully understood me and my Sharanagati. My son, say, " Thy Will be done ".
A queen looked at her rear lane thrice alone in her life-time. At her second look she was pleased and surprised , that a girl of twelve doing the scavenging work years before had been woman of thirty, with two children by her side. The queen felt doubtful., if this woman was the same girl , that she had seen eighteen years before. She was pleased to ask and her inference was confirmed. She told her," You became from a small girl to be a woman with children. You have been so patiently sweeping my court-yard for past eighteen years , but not a single day you have asked even the smaller thing from me ". The poor woman kept her hands folded and said, "Mother, Your Grace and glance is more than enough for me." The queen was moved ; she said," You shall have no more to do this menial work. I am ordering my men to send you enough money that will enable you to live with a number of servants."
The queen managed a large sum of money to be sent over. Years passed. One evening, the queen heard some noise in the back-yard. Two sturdy young men were catching an old woman and helping her to move to be below the point of the royal terrace. The queen was disturbed. She inquired what the matter was. With humblest respects the two men said, it was their mother," She is almost on the point of dying and her last desire has been that she should be brought over here and we have brought her.". The queen exclaimed," What, is it not my Sharana ? " Said the two sons of old woman," Yes Mother, that is your Grace-recipient Sharana. She was working here only the last Friday. She continued serving here , although she had so many servants and we , her sons promised to do the work. But she won't let us. Now we pray that Your Majesty advises and order her to lie peacefully permitting us to work here". The old woman with her tottering hands closed the mouth of her son. She could not bear the words which would mean swerving from her self-surrender. She looked up at the queen with folded hands.Tears fell from the eyes of the queen. They fell over her face. The queen passed immediate orders to her personal doctor to visit her Sharana and do all the needful to cure her. She breathlessly waited for information about Sharana getting safe. The news bearer gave the news, " On reaching home, from your Majesty, the old woman immediately expired".
This is self-surrender, Mai-ism relies upon and preaches.
Dear reader, THAT IS MAI-ISM . GOD AS MOTHER, MOTHER OF ALL, LOVE , SERVICE, DEVOTION AND UNCONDITIONAL CHEERFUL SELF-SURRENDER.
The Founder while closing this book, sheds tears , the final ones to be known by the blessed readers of this sacred book. " Mother, I have danced enough at Thy bidding. take me back now to the goal desired by thee for Thy wicked son."
"With Thy eyes, My eyes United , Do Keep Perpetually' Remember, Don't fail, Repeating Mother, mother's make me die in Thee! Oh ! Ye !!
MAI SWARUP MAI MARKAND
If Love is Mother and Mother is Love , I am Mother's and Mother is mine. Mother bless the readers. Bless Thy followers. Bless Thy surrender seeking. Be Thou pleased with anyone that repeats Thy Sacred Name. On Thyself being propitiated and pleased , let the little universe of every devotee of Thine be most pleased, satisfied, comfortable and happy.
Let it be Thy Grace that the rulers led the ruled into the righteous path. Let good befall to the lot of all. Let the Universe be happy with rains, crops, contentment and prosperity.
Make Thy devotees live in peace and bliss without fear. Make all beings to relish pleasure in attending to their duties and on attaining duties and on attaining their spiritual welfare.
Make the wicked virtuous, make the virtuous successful in attaining their peace of mind. Make tranquilized souls free from bondages. Inspire and help the freed to be taking up as their life mission, the work of helping, loving and serving others to free themselves through Thy Mercy and Guru's Grace.
May all be freed from dangers. May all understand and attain good. May all be living nobly. May all be rejoicing in the Universal spiritual good of all.
Mother! Make all happy, free from all worries and diseases and all calamities. Make each and all of us enabled to enjoy the Best , what is Divine, Sublime and Good
Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai,
Jay Markand Rupa Mai
Jay Markand Rup Markand Mai
