Notes 447 to 518

 CHAPTER VIII

MAI: Mai's First Mother's Child

Mai Swarupa Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekananda and Mai-ism 

Jay Mai Jay Mai Jay Mai

447. The Founder came in close touch with the human worldly mind, in its most intricate natural varying forms and faces, after 1945 on his retirement. There is a good deal of subtle interest to learn and enjoy in the child-like stage of a vexed soul in a grown-up body. There is nothing new or unusual or interesting in the description of a surpriseful narration of a child-like mind when it gets shocked on the contact with the wickedness of the world. For the worldly matured veteran, grown old with every practice and experience of wickedness and one actually living in it and with it, such a narration is a tirade. But, for the blessed, most blessed few, it is the most invaluable possession of informative knowledge, leading finally to eye openingness and eye closingness, the latter resulting in the highest divine bliss. Such narrations are to be utilised by inverting them. Through the reading of wickedness, one has to extract righteousness and childlikeness. It is heat around and ahead that creates sweetness in the fruits of trees in warm countries.

448. Even today, the Founder's eyes get wet on the mere remembrance of the childlikeness of Blessed R.K. Paramahamsa. Founder states, " Wickedness of the world is what you get as ninety-nine per cent of the constituency of the world's atmosphere, today. Take your sample anywhere from, a handful".

449. The world has known the righteousness and appreciated it. Some blessed few have tried to acquire it, some have played greater mischief under the delusion artificially created about their having possessed it. But there is something still higher than righteousness. Not even the divinity, not even the devotion. Something still beyond and that is childlikeness.

450. Founder states," Words fail me. I am referring to that Divine childlikeness- that indescribable childlikeness. Many times much more sublime than righteousness, divinity or devotion. All these latter are drosses from which divine bliss has to be obtained on burning. You churn out some superb thing as bliss or ecstasy out of something else, in the case of all these things , but the Divine childlikeness is like the spontaneously lying scattered grains of the Divine Bliss itself, which has not known the touch of human effort- the mind and the heart, which is much above that of the most victorious CONQUEROR of them. The majesticity, in whose realm, rebelliousness, discontentedness struggle and the unrighteousness itself are impossibilities. The proofness against any impurity in midst of all impurities, like a castle, of which not a square inch gets wet in the midst of a billowful ocean. Your floorings get dumped. You are so very efficient and prompt in resetting with better mosaic tiles. Your walls get effervescence, you scratch off and make your walls still more beautifully painted. Your roof leaks and you make it more secure by using Mangalore material. But who can realise the greatness and superiority of a hamlet-house which remains untouched and unaffected, the very same in the midst of cold and heat, damp and marsh, rain storm and wind whirl ??? There is no access, not even the smallest approach is possible for the deteriorating elements. That is Divine childlikeness. Imagine a circular wall around you, such one that the most deadly arrow passing through it transforms itself into a  scentful flowers-garland of the original arrow length. Let life taking bullets to come, as soon as they pass that circular ring they break down into small globules of playing marbles!!! Religious teachers have taught us virtue, morality, righteousness, purity, divinity, devotion, but there is yet, one thing still higher. I am referring to that yet still something higher - The Divine Childlikeness. The mind and the heart of the lamb that skips and plays, which has absolutely no idea, it is richly and profusely fed for a purpose and carried to its destination, till the cruel hand is raised. Here the selfish mind asks" Will it be guaranteed that the knife will fly away and fall down from the hand?" Does the lamb know or ask any such thing? No. That is Divine Childlikeness.

"The conqueror's position is only a secondary position. The conqueror is a ti pot which was once dipped in dirty water but has been now brilliantly cleansed. He is not an untarnishable unused golden pot.Divine Childlikeness !!! "

451. "My tears flow as I imagine Swami Vivekananda scolding the old Paramahamsa for bearing so much love to him, the Paramahamsa went to Brahmo Samaj Congregation and was practically insulted. The old Guru, with supernatural powers to burn the whole universe if he liked, standing with folded hands as a guilty criminal before a young lad. Not  a word of defence, not a word of, " Who are you to teach me wisdom, you little boy of yesterday?" That is Divine Childlikeness.

Totapuri drew most brilliant pictures of Vedanta and Nirvikalpa Samadhi and ended with saying "I will teach you that highest thing to be achieved, the Samadhi." He asked, "Would you like to learn?" Says my beloved Mother in human form, " I don't know. It all depends on my Mother" " I will ask Mother, If She permits, I will."

The Founder says often with tears, Paramahamsa would not have even breathed his inhalations without asking "Mother, may I breathe?" That is CHILDLIKENESS. 

A God-favoured Mother's child asking anyone that comes near, be he of no worth, whether he will be cured of his footsore !! The Mother's child that seeks consolation even from sinners, (where does the child know what is sinfulness and sinlessness ??) and gets joyfully quietened  on hearing "Yes, it will be cured, don't worry." That is the Divine childlikeness which the conqueror is never fortunate to enjoy.

The doctor with the knowledge of the disease has only one person to quieten him, one who has still higher knowledge than his own. The child !!! He has the whole universe to console him because the very idea of one man's superiority and another's inferiority has no possible entrance or place and no birth there. That is Divine childlikeness.

452. How much would I like to be absorbed in the sublimity of that childlikeness; and wish others to be absorbed too? (There the difference of childhood and boyhood comes). I have to descend to the mortal plane and to be a boy. I have to add for the satisfaction of the questioner, " Yes, the butcher's hand shall tremble and the knife shall fly off and fall to the ground." Do you think, Mother is not all the while watching ?? and protecting ??" It is extremely difficult to retain one's childhood.

Founder says, " I have experienced childhood. I have described it in my pages. Where such a child falls unconscious even on the busiest traffic road, running motors automatically stop. They can not touch even the fringe of the protection-circle drawn by Mother Herself around Her child."

453. Founder says, "I wish to bombard Satanic intellectual acrobat-ism. If the world can't appreciate that Divine childlikeness, let it die and burn,  but let it not pollute that nectar by adding thereto the humbug of Leela, an artificial dissimulation, as a preservative of the Ideal's greatness. Don't pollute your intellectually manufactured venom of a false pretension, a disguised duplicity, a concocted cunningness. Don't pollute, don't deteriorate Divine childlikeness.

If people have no brains to relish the true greatness of childlikeness, there need not be worrying about it; but there should be no desire to dilute. Banish that mischief-making monster from your brains.

There is nothing and there was nothing like a "part playing " in that Divine childlikeness. Do not call it part played because you are incapable of conceiving that state. And then alone you can relish the ambrosia.  The world, in its ant's way of thinking, considers it an impossibility that world-changing powers can co-exist simultaneously with a child's helplessness and most natural actions and exclamations, of helplessness and help-demanding. Therefore it brings in a foreign, dirty, connecting brass link piece in between the two best brilliant diamonds. There is no Leela between the world and Mother's child. If there is any, it is between Mother and Mother's child.  The childlikeness is itself the most natural and spontaneous Leela. It is pure and simple Divine childlikeness which is born with some blessed one, out of millions of blessed.

Where is the need of padding? Why roaming over the whole intellectual universe to set matters explainable and gullible ??

Why not admit the fact of facts, viz., that we are entirely ignorant about, or unbelievers of, the most elementary things before us, with us and within us ??

454. Where is the contradiction and anomaly ?? in helplessness and all-powerfulness ?? With your hairs turned grey and living in the midst of so many families, have you not seen a child 's crying has achieved wonderful conquests and wielded immeasurable powers ?? Why, why? conceal? the real point?? You have seen hundreds of mothers and hundreds of children; but the fact of facts about which out of courtesy or fear of opposition alone you say " Oh yes, surely", is that you don't believe "there can be such relationship between God and Man". Where is the need of bringing ether and its vibrations and speed, etc., and so many aids of occult sciences of Yoga, etc.? in the question of being able to move God to enable you to achieve a certain unusual thing ?? That beating-about-the-bush is there because although you say, "Oh, Yes." with a doubled strength lest you be detected, a "black terrible face No" has been all the while obsessing and possessing you. Are you surprised when a child tells you "I had no mangoes when I came to you to join in your fruit picnic; but being desirous, I asked my mother and she gave this basket of mangoes, and now I can join in your picnic ??" Do you ask any questions ?? Do you ask whether you went to ask in a saffron robe with a tonsured head or in your usual dress ??Do you ask," Which words selected from which author and which poet and which devotee and which dictionary did you use??"

455. The hard fact of hardest facts is "you hear, you see, you pass through certain experiences which are sure to open your eyes, but you don't believe." On the top of it, you don't say"you don't believe". Such a confessional admission  come in the way of your favourable position of creating certain impressions, securing certain advantages  and utilising certain opportunities of exploitation."

456. Founder states: And it is that which has come in the way of all religious irreligiosity -eradicators. I am talking to you of the subtle-most point just at the lowest bottom point of the root. I am telling you something which you and I have heard hundreds of times but which I have been able to see only after years of austerities and experience. It is this. Faith or no Faith, Belief or no Belief, this is the point of a final dual fight, in the palace of the invaded country's king, nay, in his very harem.

Both armies may fight with victory or defeat on either side, but the final deciding factor is the duel in the very heart of the palace and harem. Even though invaded king's army was successful, if he is killed at the harem, every other victory has no meaning. On the other hand, although his army has suffered defeats, if he kills the invader, just in the single hand duel, invaders army gets scattered and he retains his sovereignty.

457. This final duel fight is the final deciding factor. If there is a deceitful well with a tempting green lawn as its cover, we can understand, the falling therein of hundreds, if there is none to inform everyone that approaches the well. A beginner, a young inexperienced zealous saint, there being no guidance of the past left to him about the predecessors' experiences, fondly believes " let me put up a board of warning". He does that. Still, hundreds fall. He goes one step more. "Let me station here a living guard (of persuasion and not compulsion)", still, hundreds fall. He goes still one step more. He himself, killing his hunger and thirst, sits there cautioning every one, still, hundreds fall. He becomes still more energetic. He is preparing records, so many died on Monday, so many on Tuesday, etc., still, hundreds fall. He prepares a list of persons dead and does not allow anyone to go before he reads the list. Still, hundreds fall. He establishes a studio. He installs a showroom of all photographs of persons drowned. Still, hundreds fall.

Wonder of wonders!! He has ruined his whole life in preaching at every cost of his, his money, his ease, his sleep and rest, and yet, not an iota of success !! Why? What is the reason !! IT IS UNBELIEF at the bottom. " He raises his voice and shouts.H e keeps a man to warn. He fixed boards to inform, he installs studios of dead persons. All gone to waste. Are these boards, guards, studios, etc. of no use ??

458. The Founder says,"They are of absolutely no real use, all your money of raising temples, opening free libraries, arranging series of lectures. Nothing is of any real avail if the unbelief is there." Make sure, Belief and Faith are there. If there is the smallest spark, that is more than enough to raise up a burning flame. But if it is not there, don't waste your life in flogging dead cavalry.

You shout you deafen world's ears, but which devil hears you? if unbelief is there ?? And which devil understands you rightly??

459. Just study the attitude of a ghost-possessed wife. The husband of a wife prays and prays and gets the Mother's Lotus Feet Ablution water from the Founder. With all the caresses, the husband hands over the bottle and asks her to drink. She has an idea, her husband has fallen in love with her more beautiful sister and the husband has brought a slow poison mixture. She pours it away in the sink. 

All courtesy, Thanksgiving," Who else will die like this for me ?" everything is there, but the water has not touched even the lip. Everybody is wondering why the water is so very ineffective " So many are cured and why not she ?" - is the wonder of the husband and the Founder. Only the wife, the ghost and the sink know why of it.

460. Similarly, regarding a wife -venomed husband. He and his wife are staying away from his parents and suffering from poverty which does not permit two square meals. His father who is a millionaire entreats him prostrating to him," Why should you and your wife be so unhappy when I have so much? You come on with me and stay with me till your life ." The venom is this: - A woman taking revenge on the family, for having been insulted with the refusal of her passionate overtures to the father in her young age has created and poured out the poison. The son's wife is made to believe" The father-in-law has an evil eye on her. He wants to overpower her with obligations and finally to possess her." 

The more the father presses and prostrates, the more ferocious becomes the son's refusal. Says he," I will beg in the street but won't come to you." The True Reason ?? none knows except the revengeful woman.

Thus, once the ghost is in or the wickedness has captured you  - all efforts, the scriptures, pilgrimages, worships etc., all go useless. And the incorrigibility reaches its last stage of " the dual fight in the palace itself." There are different stages from which the original restoration would be possible, as when boards are hung up or when guards are stationed or when the studios are installed. But when the disease goes still deeper, it is only "the dual fight " that decides.

461. And that dual fight means the fight between your apparent and real self. If by the very nature of yours you are demoniac, with any amount of your merits, you are a lost soul in the end. If your nature is of a divine soul, in spite of your all sinfulness, in the end, you are a saved soul.  If you are a demon-like you will by courtesy and hypocrisy and falsehood say," Yes" to everything about Divinity, but when the final stage comes, the smiling " Yes " will turn into the most terrible ghastly " No ".

On the other hand, if you are finally of a Divine nature all your most emphatic "No" will at the end turn to all-surrendering "Yes". In the first case, all your efforts at reformation, seemingly easily successful, will be finally thwarted by permanent constituent "No". In the second case, all your efforts of reformation seemingly most unsuccessful, will be fully victory crowned by the permanent latent but undeveloped "Yes". The other two cases of "no" leading to still higher "No"  and "Yes" leading to still higher "Yes" are straight enough and easily understandable. There is nothing like change therein, it is only an intensity aggravation, addition and a multiplication.

462. The Founder says,"So much labour of the Guru and Shishya, and especially that of the Guru, is wasted because there are no intermediate tests and more because there is no entrance test itself. This is such a huge blunder in the modern methods of religious teachings, that he would like to place the sixteenth discourse of Bhagwad  Geeta of  Daivi and Asuri Sampattis , as the every first Discourse of religious instruction after the introductory one.  You have to see that the vessel in which you pour  in your nectar juice is in the first place  not leaky, and secondly that it is not made of an untinned or rusting material."

463. Here, we are speaking of, not righteousness, not virtuousness, not goodness, but Divine Childlikeness, which is the essence of all these three put together in a melting pot over the fire of devotion. A child is easily pulled towards the righteous, virtuous and good persons and is terribly afraid of the reverse. ( In fact attraction of children is a test of proximity to Divine Mother). It gets sickened in a foreign atmosphere and flies away therefrom. The child understands mind and heart so very instinctively. Children mostly speak the truth, but more than that, believe "everyone is speaking the truth" and because of the latter, they can be very easily duped. They speak what they think and they act as they speak. Some children get easily excited but can be equally soothed over. Children get soon hot and soon cooled. They are like people who obtain what they want for the day and consume the same by the end of the day, with nothing to worry about and to disturb their sleep. They live, as it were, day to day with an ever-free-bird-heart. They have no deep future thinking.T hey do not indulge in imaginations. They are not deeply selfish, although they may appear to be selfish sometimes superficially and temporarily. Their earnings are small and trivial. They have no big ambitions and complex ambiguities. They have nothing like two different things as, one, the heart-sweetness or sympathy, and another, the lip-sweetness or sympathy. Mother to them is their everything and all-powerful and they have every confidence in her. A child is innocent, pure and sincere. One great monster of all mischief in life, viz., the sexual desire and sexual knowledge have not been born in the child's mind. A child takes life very lightly, has least temptations and is too tender and timid, not to fly away from all burdensome-ness and heaviness. Children's heart and mind substantially are too clean, and too simple for the Satan and for a long and deep sorrow to step in. They are attached to nothing except their mother. No vultures build their nests in their heart homes, There is little light, but absolutely no darkness. Their whiteness may be palish, but there is absolutely no blackness. "Unless we be like little children, we shall not enter Heaven."

464. Founder has so often read the following from his "Mother's Message" and one most enchanting piece from Paramahamsa's saying, side by side.

His is : Practise 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 worldwormness, sexuality and selfishness. You are off your cares, time is an eternity for you and life is lightened. 

Be Mother's child and Her lap shall be thrilling and throbbing to have you on itself.

465. The Founder's highest joy is to be called Mother's child and Mother. 

One of his friends advised him when he was about fifty, and also belittled him. Of course, he was a man to be  pitied for his ignorance of religious higher living ."Don't you think you should be wiser? You can be cheated by thousands". Founder smiled and said," Yes, I like and love to be cheated. Am I not then one in thousands? "Am I not then a child ?" The clear logic, in this case, is that the loss on being cheated, the maximum that one can imagine, is in such a man's weighing nothing compared to the joy of divinity and purity which would be lost to him, on his equipping himself to be proof against any cheating. The latter loss of childhood is, in the eyes of Mother's child, many times much greater than all the loss in aggregate on being cheated. That is so because his mind is an invaluable possession for which he has already paid heaviest prices and secondly, once it is lost it is almost impossible to regain that childhood, retained even at, say, sixty, at such a heavy cost.

466. Founder funnily says," A boy of twelve came to me.I asked his name ", he said "Vishvanath". He showed him a letter written by him to someone else. It was addressed as "my dear Vishuda".He was surprised when he was told Vishuda was fifty-seven years old. In modern times we hear no mother also shouting "Vishuda". Vishuda of this age can be a seven years old boy at the highest and that shout can only be in the village. When Founder, who did not know the age, first addressed that old man of fifty-seven as "Vishuda", the latter wrote,"Mai? I prostrate to Thee for giving me the corroboration. I have always been asking myself," Have I not wasted all my fifty-five years ?" Thy letter confirms my doubt which I shall from hence considered to have been fully confirmed. None is blessed as me now at this moment, enjoying the childhood of mother's pet child, seven years old, with his mother in Thee."

467. The passage referred to as of Paramahamsa the most beautiful and also most illuminative, reads thus :

" A Paramahamsa lives sometimes as a child, sometimes as a ghoul and sometimes as a madman. He allows children to be near him and tries to imbibe their simplicity and non-attachment. "

How glad is a child when his mother gives him a new piece of cloth? If you ask him for it, he will refuse to give it and will say, "No, I won't give it, Mamma has given it to me ". And he will hold the cloth tightly and watch, lest you should snatch it from him and as if his whole soul were in it. But a minute later, if he finds in your hand a toy not worth even a farthing, he will say," Give me that, I will give you the cloth." A moment later, perhaps, he will throw the toy away and run after a flower. He is attached to nothing.

468. What is the essence of this description?? A child is attached to nothing, therefore nothing is more valuable and nothing is less valuable. Values, if at any moment insisted upon, are not necessary values established in the world. A child is therefore so easy to be quietened because there is no opposing competition. On the other hand, the usual most temporary obstinacy is most forceful. But one does not know when that changes, because nothing has a permanent value with the child. Nothing is good and nothing is evil, nothing is permanently commendable and nothing is permanently repugnant. Rising a bit higher, nothing is child's in the worldly sense and nothing is the child by itself. A child is what some higher power makes it. A child-like soul is a dry leaf that drifts itself to a scented or a stinking corner, as someone else desires and decides. He has no individuality, no aim and no object. He acts as it were by an instinct, which is too weak to have a permanent hold on him.

469. A child is an innocence and purity before development begins. Paramahamsa shows the very same childhood but after the perfection of development. In any usual child and Paramahamsa, you see a train just at the second station from a Railway terminus. The only thing that is not known to others, at least at the first sight, is whether the train is prepared for a long journey outward or has returned thereafter.

470. The Founder gives a beautiful idea of a parrot-child confined in a cage. It has no idea and feeling of a greater or less joy or a sorrow, on the cage being of iron, brass, silver or gold. It takes no notice absolutely whether that cage is cleaned or not. It is a matter of no difference to the parrot-child whether the fruits served are fresh or stale, relishful or corroded. It speaks nothing. It answers nothing. It learns nothing. It repeats nothing that is taught. It has only one idea which has permeated every atom of its heart, mind and body. It speaks rarely. It is only waiting to send a word of a message to its mother, through anyone who may by chance come there and who is capacious enough to carry the message and knows its mother. And that message is "Mother, I make no difference of the cage, its cleanliness and the foodstuff. I do not even mind confinement. Thou, The Ever Free, be just sitting on the opposite tree, so that with my vision of Thine, I may lose the very consciousness of myself, being absorbed in ecstasy on being unified with Thee."

471. That is Mai-ism. Your circumstances, richness or poverty, intellect or dullness, literariness or illiteracy is after all, in the end, nothing. Even your cleanliness, your supernatural powers, your knowledge, your high plane, even the so much tom-tommed righteousness, goodness, virtuousness is nothing. What is the highest of these things before the Infinite Source of Goodness, Righteousness, and Antithesis of Evil?? You are at the best a bit higher than the other fellow creatures around you. But what are you before the  Infinite immeasurable?? What is even the best and worst thing of pleasure and pain, and crowning or condemning? How long? For what an infinitesimal part of the Eternity ??  You be doing something in the direction of goodness, virtue, righteousness. But what after all are you capable of doing ?? Nothing in comparison to the unimaginable vastness of the Eternity and Infinity!

Your only salvation is your losing yourself in the steady gaze, full of highest love, devotion and self-surrender, if Grace is showered on you and Mother sits before you on the opposite tree. Either send your own heart rendering shrill or your message to your Mother. She wants to be assured, about your genuine single-minded desire of being emancipated, that you want nothing else and that you have a conviction, on having failed after doing your every effort, that nothing can save you, except the Divine Grace of Mother.

472.  Your exertions are required for the final conviction. A theoretical untried belief or a congratulatory praiseful expression would not do. You do it. Do exert your best. But that is for realising just the opposite truth. Without "I have done all that I can and can no longer do it, my hands and feet have stayed, my mind and heart have been humbled, with the fullest consciousness of their being able to do absolutely nothing," there is left a lurking possibility of a germination, some moment in the Vast Eternity, of "I could have done." In wheat-growing, there should be no tares.

    Thus, you have to do what is ordained to be done, in order to learn that what you can do best is in reality nothing. You have to study all scriptures to arrive at a conviction, that there is something much higher than what all scriptures can teach you. You have to learn, to arrive at a stage, when you feel the next stage to be attainable, only on unlearning.

473. One of the boys of a vastly great hostel, running most regularly, gets accidentally hungry in a night. One out of hundreds of them. He runs towards the kitchen-house with a big bunch of keys,  he tries one after another. He perspires. He beats his forehead on failures. He tries another key. His hunger pain is greater than the pain of all his exertions and keeps him on struggling. The Matron Mother hears some sound as if a lock were being tried, or being opened. She comes up. She finds, one boy is hungry and has been trying since hours. She caresses him, kisses him, consoles him. He throws away his own bunch of keys. He forgets every exertion. Mother opens out the treasure-house of all happiness.

    It is in the actuality of things, that Mother has opened it; but what has opened it ?? Mark the difference of who? and what ?? It is the hunger, exertion, failure, persistence, perspiration, conviction, pity, and lastly Grace.

474. That is the whole secret. The knocker does not open the door. It is God and God's Grace that opens the door but knocking leads to it. The seeker does not find anything, but God's Grace places the thing sought, in the seeker's hand. Main-most, the subtle most difference is this: One type wins battles, but loses the war; another type loses battles, but wins the war; and what is it that distinguishes one type from another? The first type says, " I am the doer. I shall knock and open the door. I shall seek and I shall find it." The second type says, " I am not the doer, I shall knock and God's Grace will open the door. I shall seek and God's Grace will place the thing sought in my hand." The final duel-fight is between " I am everything " and " Oh Mother, Thou art Everything", each one in its most literal sense.

475. Here again, the confusion may be there. The Real and The Unreal, just as a Mother may act as a Father and a Father may act Mother-like. Similarly here too, a Gyani may be indulging in an outward expression, " I am everything " and yet on a still deeper analysis, you may be surprised to find the means "Thou art everything". Or, that as " Thou includes I "  " Thou art everything " permits " I am everything ". Just as an officer's wife says " we are transferred by the government". Colloquially one may speak " I " but may mean " Thou ", another man may speak " Thou " and maybe meaning " I ". Here again, speaking "I" and meaning "I" or speaking "Thou" and meaning "Thou ", are simple cases needing no comment. One speaks in a devotional language, another in the Vedantic language. What each in full reality means and believes is a thing best known to oneself, not even to oneself, but to Mother Almighty. Because which human being has not found and experienced he was under a delusion in the past?? Who can say he is no longer under a delusion at any stage ?? There is no end to "I thought I had understood rightly, but now I understand I was entirely in the dark. Now I am sure I understand things rightly". From one delusion to another, with a delusion about " now no longer being under a delusion." Endless whirling till Mother's Grace dawns and illuminates burns all impurities and brightens. 

Founder states: Blessed Paramahamsa was vehemently emphatic about " Thou " and not " I ". If everyone has a right to think and make conclusions and declarations as he thinks best, I take Paramahamsa to be more a Mother's child than anything else. He was Mother's child first and then an Adventist, (if at all he was that). He was Mother Herself, (My eyes get wet here on Mother's day in Navratra while revising the manuscript 13-10-50.)

476. The Founder had an inspirational illumination, after communion with Mother, on his recent birthday 23rd December 1949.  He expressed certain beliefs of his regarding Paramahamsa as below, in fewest words.

    The whole world needs Religion to be happy. That religion needs to be a universal one and as simple as it can be made with fewest observances and freest latitude, so far as innocent harmless living is scrupulously lived. The whole conception regarding religion needs a change, especially in this Kali age. Let everything be made a new to give a new spirit, new enthusiasm. God who is neither a Father nor a Mother, or Father as also Mother, decided to overhaul the whole religious fabric in view of all changed circumstances. God till now, mostly worshipped as Father became Mother. Mother decided to finally rub out the old impressions which were already rubbed out by Time, and start a new method of religionisation. Just when a new thing has to be substituted, it becomes indispensable that the world be assured of the highest efficiency of the new element, and a model has to be raised and installed before the world. With that same view, Blessed Paramahamsa was sent to this world (18-2-1836 to 16-8-1886) as an Ideal of Mother's child. Mother Almighty took the most minute stock of the divine and devilish tendencies and working-forces of the Universe. She saw that justice as a rule, and mercy as an exception, won't work with the modern world. God must be the Merciful Parent-Mother. Not only for a handful of Hindus calling themselves "Shaktas", and holding their belief most stealthily in a private unfindable corner of the Hindu world but of the Whole Universe. God further decided  " Let the relationship between God and devotee be that of Mother and child." How will the world believe in its efficacy? Why should world accept this new belief, in addition to or in lieu of their own old beliefs of other relationships ???

477. There have been different types of relationships.

      A Protector and the Protection-seeker, a tribal god and the tribesman, a stern judge and the judged, a jailer and a culprit, A father and a son, A guru and a disciple. A master and a servant, a lender and a borrower, an elder brother and a younger brother, a husband and a wife, a lover and a beloved, a beloved and a lover, a son and a father, one enemy and another enemy, (the smaller one absorbed in thinking day and night about the higher one). One can't conceive of the innumerable relationships that can be there. Each relationship requires a certain deservedness. A father's son must be obedient religious and illustrious.  The Shishya or younger brother like Lakshman must be ready for austerities. The servant must have the highest humility in addition to perspiring service. A wife must be satisfactory in various aspects. A beloved must lose herself and have no individuality. Mother and child relationship needs the least deservedness. Mother has to be more active in that relationship than the child.  I am at a loss to find an expression about any idea of the duty of a child to the mother.

478. The new religionisation, with God that has transformed Himself into Mother, wants the relationship of a mother and child, and places that relationship on the top of all the past known and practically time-worn-out relationships. How can God do that? unless the world sees the greatness and the emancipating capacity of that relationship? Mother managed to offer to the world Blessed Ramakrishna Paramhamsa as Mother's child, to be with the world for full fifty years for any tests and experimentations.

479. Subsequently, the preaching and inculcating of the element of Universality was so very efficaciously done by All-powerful Swami Shree Vivekanand, who brushed away all the dust of centuries in the shape of impurities, in individual religions and sects and sub-sects, and brought about the element of Universality.

480. Founder states: Mother has further desired, through me to formulate Mother's Religion by Mai-ism. To be the Mother's Instrument in founding a religion which has been revealed to me by God as Mother, which is based on the belief of the highest efficacy of the relationship of Mother and child, between God and devotee, so indisputably proved by Paramahamsa, who also planted the seeds of universality, by his undertaking the devotion of the various deities, and showing same reverence to the Founders of every important religion and to religion itself.

481. Thus Sri Ramakrishna practically demonstrated through his life, what a Mother's child can be and how blessed that child is; how lovely, how all - powerful, how all - powering and how very wonderful in transforming ordinary worldly souls, and how very spontaneous in the matter of simplifying the way to emancipation !!! Paramahamsa also showed how Mother, in order to be most speedy in your emancipation, was required to be conceived as Universal. Mai-ism says Universal Evils can be set right through the Grace of Universal Mother alone. None knows the ailment of the child as Mother, without even a communicating syllable.

482. Paramahamsa's disciple busied himself with clearing clouds of suspicious, narrowness and materialism around any religion, which became more attractive and acceptable on being scented with the requirement of a universal outlook. But, somehow, the main current of his general preaching was deflected towards Vedantism, Hinduism, and Adwaitism; and the Paramahamsa's most favourite life-long belief about the Motherhood of God, so very abruptly disappeared. The Mother conception, however, like the river Saraswathi, began to flow underground, unseen, to re-appear in much more vigorous force, after about half a century only ( a century being the smallest unit in a matter of religious reformation). 

I know my Mother. She has always shown a passionate frolicsomeness for hide and seeks, just to give a shockful awakening to the sleeping world.

483. The Founder, when he read the life of Blessed Shri Paramahamsa, for the first time in December 1949 ( having been presented with a copy by one of his Madrasee devotees, while he celebrated sisters' gathering on Dashera  Day 1-10-1949), noticed page 577 [ one of the practically last pages ], of the 4th edition , where a mention has been made about the highest joy of Paramahamsa in the morning of 23-12- 1885, which was the year , date and time of his (Founder's) own birth.

In the whole life reading , the said event , subsequently followed by a similar joyful day on 1st January 1886, only ten days after, is the only episode in his life, when, as it were, all his love and surrender to Mother with most excruciatingly painful austerities, was fructified, crowned and immortalised.  

The description reads thus most briefly: "On the morning of December 23rd 1885, the Master was in a particularly happy mood. He said to Niranjan "I will sit on your lap." Touching Kalipad's chest he said, " Be illumined". Two women devotees also received his blessings. He said to Mahindra "My task of teaching is almost finished. I can no longer instruct people." " I wish to reveal more but I can't."

" It was 1st January 1886. Sri Paramahamsa felt much better and wished to take a walk in the garden. He said to all, " What more shall I say? I bless you all. Be illumined."

"Overwhelmed with emotion, all moved forward to take the dust off his Lotus Feet. Paramahamsa's mercy overstepped its bounds. He touched them all, with appropriate blessings. This powerful touch revolutionized their minds. Some laughed, others wept, some sat down to meditate, while a few shouted to others, to be blessed. Master was showering his Grace upon all, without distinction.

All had an inexpressible bliss."

484. Founder , during communion with Mother, felt as if the work which he had done quite independently, as a result of his own experiences and meditations, under the protective guidance of Mother's Grace, was, as it were, the very continuation of the work, Mother Herself had begun since long through Blessed Paramahamsa. Founder's all along notion about Paramahamsa till 1949 was that he was an Adwaitist with one aspect of his (only one aspect out of so many aspects of his)  as a Mother's child in childhood as a preliminary stage only. That notion was naturally the result of the Adwaitistic teachings of Hinduism by the R.K.P. Ashrams, with absolutely no importance, or even reference to the Motherhood of God. This longtime belief changed that night most wonderfully. He began to see, if not the sameness, at least an allied ness and unique affinity, between the teaching of Paramahamsa and his own beliefs and teachings. From what scanty reports and writings he had come across, Founder had come to the conclusion  that Paramahamsa  had, in his early years, approached God through Kali, whom he called Mother just as all Hindu Shaktas do, and had ended with Adwaitism of the type of Shankaracharya; in a word, that he was a Shakta in early years and an Adventist in the end.

The reading of this book changed his whole vision. He not only saw that he was Mother's child up to the end of his life, but his whole life was a Mother's child 's life.  Adwaitism was a superimposition on Mother's Child-ism ( or call it Ramkrishnism or Mai-ism) by the succeeding disciples, fascinated with Hinduism and Adwaitism with their fully deserved glories, being Hindu themselves and having perhaps more of a head than heart. The Founder felt that the faith in the absolute Motherhood of God with the Universality of Mother and the supremacy of the Mother and child relationship, which the Founder had so tremendously appreciated was, as it was, the reappearance of the very same haloful starry divinity in the firmament, with only a little change in time and place , location and name , size and shape , light and language , orientation and ornamentation.

485. The Founder expressed his joy on this revelation in these words. " Just imagine a weak in-capacious ignorant young rambling boy of no education, no home, no parent, and no relation. He gets a high command from Her Majesty, which says absolutely nothing except that he should unfailingly be present in a certain city in Her palace at a certain hour when he shall be handed over certain duties to perform. And that, on failure, no mercy will be shown to him, in the case of his disobeying the Supreme Command."

Just consider his perplexities. He knows nothing, neither the situation nor direction nor the said city in a foreign continent and world, or anything about the palace or the routes therein or thereto. He has nothing like the smallest coin for even bare clothing. 

He knows nothing and has none as his sympathizers. He does not know whom to ask, where to go. He has no idea how he can go , what duties he is to be given, whether he returns from there or goes there forever, how long the place is and how long he is to be there, how should he manage matters here and there. He is in entire oblivion, dumb-founded and blind-folded. His heart has practically stopped under the crushing Himalayan weight.

He is just pulled by Mother to go on the dock to see what a steamer is like, to inquire where is the city, how much is the passage etc. By Mother's Divine arrangement, he meets an extremely divine soul of supernatural highest calibre. The boy asks that venerable sage-like saintly superman, " Can you tell me if you know where is Mai Nagar ?" That high soul's countenance brightens up," Mai Nagar "?  You mean the Universal Mother's city? Yes, I know, why? I am living there alone and am just now going to that very City." The boy makes a submission of his whole story. The countenance of the Blessed Soul still further brightens up, "Wonderful enough. I am going to the same place and palace itself." He asks, " What are your programmes and arrangements ?" The humble reply darts forth. " None except to be present there earliest, surrendering myself to Mother and take Her commanding orders ." " Can you start now with me ?"  The boy's tears drop down. " I have no means, no money, no equipment, no knowledge. I have nothing whatsoever, except the letter of Her Command. Mother alone knows, how I can." " Mother is my only Savior and only Property in this world." Says the Blessed Soul, " Let there be nothing. Are you surrendered? I will do all the rest." The boy, jubilant beyond measure, said, "Surrendered? I don't know what that really means. I know nothing. I think of nothing except Mother. You decide yourself what I am ." The Blessed Soul looks deep into the boy's soul and smiles. Says the Blessed Soul, smiling, " Come on, my child. Is surrender something else ?" From now onwards, you are my child. Everything of mine is yours." " Can you accompany me in the cabin, straightway?"

What a relief ?? Can you imagine the cessation of every disquietude that that boy can experience ?? That's boy's relief was nothing more, compared to mine, the moment my dark ignorance continuing to be there for over sixty years disappeared and I had the conviction, Paramahamsa was Mother's child, Mother Herself. I am not all alone.  Here is Mother Herself that escorts me with every comfort, taking upon Herself the whole burden of mine.

Suppose you are in the hands of a cruel-most policeman 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 into 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. 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 wordy resistance to his being shoved in with force, into a carriage.  He was shown a photograph, in which the young boy's face was quite similar. 

Just then, when the boy was on the point of being pushed into the carriage, in came the motor of the Principal in the station yard. He stood the 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 day-time-nap then and he saw the whole scene which took place at the Railway station and his friend in the clutches of the police.

The Founder says, God is giving us proofs and protections so often, but we are all damned dirty, hopeless, useless and ungrateful idiots. The fact of facts is, it is hard to rise above our atheistic machinations of mind, our own self-centeredness, our lust of sense-pleasures, the discontentedness how-much-so-ever we get or enjoy, our swollen headedness, impudence and pride etc. Do we not find some hopeless fellows in routine life, who are out and out in-capacious for anything, but who have a clever art of persuasion to make us feel everything of their action and inaction, as justified? For long we are led to believe, they are right. Gradually we come to doubt their truthfulness, then we finally conclude, they are incapable of anything  and then  we simply leave them  to their sweet will, saying to everything they say," Yes, you are right." That is how the Founder has found so many in the world to be and recommends," You are right and great". They are to be left there, in their fullest enjoyment. They know only arguing and attacking whatever comes in their way. The she-monkey-mind often brings in Nature and Soul, as if they were separate independent entities from "God".

486. 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, which was coursing through the veins of Blessed Sri Paramahamsa, and in a bit altered form through the arteries of Swami Vivekanand.

487. Founder was born on Datta Jayanti day, in the Full moonlight night of Margashirsha at about 4-30 A. M. (Brahma Muhurta), on 23rd December 1885. He asked to himself, secretly within himself, on 23rd December 1949, "Was it not likely that Paramahamsa was immensely joyful, because Mother had then decided the further needful, regarding Her work, commenced through Paramahamsa, and Mother had created, brought forth, deputed or prepared another soul, for the development of the Paramount Ideal of a Universal Religion centred round GOD AS MOTHER ?" A religion which had for its basis, the relationship of Mother and child between God and the devotee, which placed universality as the first commandment, and which dispensed with all less important issues, and laid the highest emphasis on living the life with Love, Service, Devotion and Self-surrender, to the extent possible ??

488. He began to analyse the whole situation. Paramhamsa and Swami Shree Vivekanand were not independent workers, working in their own way for something which they, with their own conclusions and only as for as they were concerned, thought best for the uplift of our suffering world. They were playing their parts in full fitting with some higher Major Grand Scheme, intended to be brought in to existence by a still Higher Power, GOD AS MOTHER.

489. We often have some scattered facts, appearing as independent facts by themselves, with no continuity and with lots of gaps and so many small connecting facts missing. As time passes and things take greater shape and development, we begin to see the whole continuity. When the blind Surdas was passing towards Lord Krishna, he could not see, he was at the end of a hill opposite another hill and a valley between the two. The Lord filled up the gap and Surdas paced further, as on a level ground.

    Paramahamsa was a spiritual giant of one type. Vivekanand a practically working religious genius of another type. It must be clearly admitted he was not a prototype of his Master. Later, came another masterpiece-working of Mother, which resulted in the formation of Mai-ism. Each of the three workings marks a stage and is a different factor and aspect, but a part of THE ONE, THE WHOLE.

490. With the strictest analysis of all the past, Founder believes that there was no "Mother's child" previous to Paramahamsa, although the idea of that relationship was not totally absent or unknown. We have so many great souls as Dattatreya, Parshuram, Agastyamuni, Vishvamitra, Sree Nigamantha Maha Desikar in South, Vallabha DHOLA in west, Ramaprasad in East, CHANDIDAS in North and so many others who surely approached Infinity with the conception of a Mother, or rather, God with Love and Mercy, but their such conception was only one along with so many other conceptions as well, working rather simultaneously. Even in some few cases, where there was the only conception of a Mother, there was nothing like unadulterated pure and simple Mother-and-child relationship conception. Maya, Shakti, Consortship, Kundalini, Nature, Mercy-aspect of God and so many other aspects were there as well, and all jumbled up, at least for the unrealised. At best, those rarest souls were " devotees " and not " Mother's children ". Pure and simple Mother-and-child relationship, we see (at least, historically) for the first time in the life of Blessed Shree Ramakrishna.

    Similarly, we do not find any predecessor of Swami Shree Vivekanand, who has tried to foster the spirit of a Universal outlook, in understanding and explaining every philosophy in the English-speaking world.

491. Founder says: If someday the world gives supremacy to the Ideal of Mother-and-child-relationship, the first honour of having been a Mother's Child goes to Blessed Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. If on similar lines, the introducing of the universal outlook while interpreting the wonderful Hindu philosophy, has its unique value with the world, that credit goes largely to Swami Shree Vivekanand.

492. A baby is entirely at the mercy of its parents and the world. A boy asserts his existence and snatches his requirement. A man claims his share even in the ancestral property (in virtue of no other qualification except that he is now a man). As a seed grows into a plant, and the plant into a tree, it has its own individual forcefulness. Paramahamsa was content with himself living the life of a Mother's Child. Swami Vivekanand left this world, doing his best up to the last moment in the matter of the most needed work, of understanding Hinduism with a much more widened and universal outlook.

493. While we judge subtle matters of religion, we can't ignore the degrees and extents and practical actions and lives lived,  and the results left behind, in respect of deciding the relative merits and characteristics, of each one of the highly religious illustrious souls. There are many, greater than greatest,  in this particular centuries-old field of wholesale religion, but one who stands first in a particular one subject of so many subjects of Religion and Religiosity, cannot be ignored because of the all told greatness of so many others, who stand high on the whole. This is the view which wise judges should always have before them.  The world has to bear the same reverence to one and all, of all religiously great souls, because each one has served, not to show what he was but to satisfy a particular need of the world, at the particular situation of that particular age. It must also be never forgotten that each one had his own allotted mission. A viceroy may be anything by himself, but he is there to carry out certain programmes and ruling policies, as per Supreme Majesty's command. 

Nothing is more foolish than to believe that a villain-part-player, in a drama, is a villainous man and the reverse thereof. There is absolutely no belittling of one genius, when we speak of the superiority of another, in a particular line of his action.

494. Founder says, " Well then, leaving aside the pre-historic past, the first Mother's child that was born was Paramahamsa, and the first Hindu philosopher and preacher that injected the element of a universal widened outlook in Hinduism was Shri Swami Vivekanand. Next comes, the third stage. Mother brings into being, a baby. The baby, in course of years, becomes a boy, and the boy in his destined hour turns to be a man. The baby, the boy and the brief-holder are the developed forms of the very same Divine Will of Mother, taking shape with the lapse of time.  They are reflections and embodiments of the very same Divine Will.    

495. Mother, in 1932, through the mouth-piece of the Founder of Mai-ism, working 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 the changed circumstances. The full-fledged man, the brief-holder, does not beg through crying and creating pity, nor does he rest contented with expressing his desires softly and mildly, meekly and obediently, looking into the faces of others and ascertaining their pleasure or displeasure. He is not for saying "I at least believe thus and live like this. You go your own 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 midst of others and his sisters and brothers. He feels bold to say to the world thus :

496. "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 on 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 carry you and emancipate you."

497. Whatever and howsoever the world may boast about, 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 the wrong ideas and wrong similes. We think mechanically in a routine machine-like 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.

498. The most patent argument against religion and religious activity, coming from the mouths of the most intelligent persons 

[ but not religious ] is: So many have come on this world. Krishna, Buddha, Shankaraachaarya शंकराचार्य, Raamaanujachaarya रामानुजाचार्य, Christ, Mohamed and so many of them. The world has remained the very same conglomerate of all wickedness, selfishness, vice, pain, sorrow and misery. "

499. 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. We most ignorantly think the highest type of wickedness is what we see in a particular age. Wickedness has no full stop.

Again our basis to judge and weigh the results of religiosity improving exertions and Divine Grace is fallacious. We take this whole vast Universe ( with all its varied and innumerable changes and influences )  as the consolidate, concentrated invisibly unit, whereas, the results are to be seen in the amelioration, and even salvation, of individuals. The caravan of the world passes on, as it pleases, but the individuals are saved - a paradox, which misleads the superficial religious thinkers.  This paradox, I have explained thus: When a University course is changing, the examiner is merciful enough that the lives of the old-course students are not spoiled on their having to enter life as "nobodies", after so much study and years in Colleges. He, therefore, passes them out, on showing there even the smallest degree of efficiency. If the old course period is, say, ten years, you will find the general calibre of the class is and becomes poorer and poorer, year by year. If the better flowers in the garden are plucked away and sent over to the owner by the gardener, and if he sends them more and more, day by day, how will the garden be, and how will it look, as time passes ?? The increasing poverty in the world of virtue is, in self,  a proof of Mother's Mercy, with which, individuals are saved and are promised to the higher world from the rottenness here.

People entirely forget that an ant has none to hamper its slow and steady progress in a particular direction. Religiosity has, however , to work its way against irreligiosity, with a much more manly vigour, than one army trying to reach the capital of the country of the army.

500. Founder says: I have now seen so much of wickedness in its most terrible unmistakable form, that I have begun to appreciate the theory of Satan, that rules the world and leads mankind by its nose.

Although it may look strange and although this statement may not hold its own, logically, as far as feeling is concerned, I feel, though perhaps wrongly, as if the darkness is not merely an absence of light, but a something positive with an assertive existence, power and force. Wickedness is not simply an absence of goodness.  We have not simply a positive infinity and a Zero, but a negative infinity, as well. None prevents us from considering the range of one Infinity to another a unit, but we do feel a zero, as also something inherently different, a negative infinity. Of course, the correctness of one expression or another would depend upon the definitions we make. Anything can be proved and disproved, but what finally counts is our experience of facts. Badness is not merely an absence of goodness. In the region of actual pain and sorrow, misery and wickedness, the language proves the poorest and pitiable means of precise communication and definition, and we have to differentiate different degrees of goodness and wickedness.

501. 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 the point of view; the maturity and the convenience for an undertaking and the favourableness and easiness expected for the success of an undertaking.

502. As every one of us knows, educated India had an infatuation for the West. Whatever came from West was greeted as heaven-sent. The world had to be matured through several stages, before anything like the launching of a new religious Ideal can be hazarded. [1] People had gone materialistic. [2] " Religion was a hallucination showing a heaven to credulous uneducated idiots ". [3] If at all religion had some sense, the religion of the West alone was something worth considering. [4] "Hinduism was only a myth of superstition and cob-web of ideology, and a literature of impossible and grossly exaggerated stories, something like an imaginary house of cards, which can never stand a breeze-blow of Science."

503. Any deeply thinking student could see, that Paramahamsa could not have gone ahead, till Swami Vivekananda had done the work which he did if at all Paramahamsa intended to do solid religious work in a constitutional modern manner. Fortunately or unfortunately, the Brahmo Samaj  ब्राह्मो समाज  had already created its claim to the revival of religiosity, for the educated thinking world. Before Paramahamsa could form an army of his stalwart religious warriors, he was called away. 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 of ground, full of thorns and brambles, misunderstandings, prejudices, superstitions, well-froggisms and so many antagonistic forces and factors before true religiosity could take root.

504. It is the poorest dramatic company in which the same actor has to play the various parts. The same actor having more than one part play, cannot work up to perfection. A child is a child, a lion is a lion, an organizer is an organizer, a swimmer is a swimmer, a boatman is a boatman and a bridge builder is a bridge builder.

People do not try to understand Religion with the clarity of their daily worldly experience. We never make the jumble of the duties of several departments of a Government, nor even the duties of the very same officer, as a head of several departments under him.

A Messenger only give s a message. A Founder lays the Foundation of an Institute, with a definite plan and with the mention of specific aims and objects, based on the Divine message he receives. An Acharya  आचार्य makes people understand and follow a certain path with detailed beliefs, truths and understandings. A Prachaarak प्रचारक  or a propagandist is again another variety. Each one is the best in the work allotted to him. 

A sensible man makes no odious comparisons, just as you can't compare one professor with another, both of entirely different subjects or one flower with another. Each one is great because of the best service he renders, in particular, circumstances, as allotted to him in a particular realm, with a particular mission, to suit a particular purpose, as a significant part of One Major Great Scheme.  

505. In practical life, we have often to make compromise, when beset with uncongenial forces all around us, rather than lose all.

My reading of Swami Vivekananda is that he took up the intellectual side of Hinduism, where it was at its best while having to deal with the West, a clarion call from whence alone would have created an awakening in India.

Founder says, " I pity my ignorance of first-hand information. 

I have no idea, as to what Swami Vivekananda thought about Motherhood of God, whether he too was a Mother's Child or not. But, anyway, the first need of India had to be first served and perhaps, therefore, the Motherhood of God was temporarily shelved, and he preached Adwaitism and established Adwaist Ashrams. This is my impression. Further, I find this Adwaitism to be of a different new variety. I may be wrong."

Here I should make it clear, what I mean by a belief in the "Motherhood of God" and "Mother's Child". In a 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 Upaasaka Of Brahma, and not minding Brahma being called Mother, just as we can call Brahma a Father, a Friend or a Saviour or a Guru, is not to be taken as the same thing as being the believer of Motherhood. Again the Upaasanaa of God's Maayaa or Shakti or any of the well known Hindu aspect of Mother, as Kaali, Tripurasundari etc.is not to be taken as the Upaasanaa 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, and vice versa. God's something is not the same thing as God. "God as Mother", in words, with a picture before you, only about the Creator-ship Rulership and Disposer-ship of the Universe or Universes, is not to be taken as "Belief in the Motherhood of God."

The test is the approach to God, as a child to Mother. You may have same reverence and worshipfulness for all the different conceptions and all Incarnations and all religions and religious Founders. All that is very nice as a courtesy, goodness, tolerance, magnanimity, universal-mindedness, heart-broadness, etc. But the question of question is " When you are in every hardship, with no hope 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 drownings," as your last refugee"?? - is the test.

A little subtler intricacy, although I don't insist thereon, as a necessary belief for a believer of Motherhood of God. I am only placing on record my own personal belief. I am afraid, I may not be able to give a clear expression.

"Brahma is an Infinite Reservoir, from which emanates God as Mother, Rama, Krishna, Christ, Buddha and all. Although the conception of God as Mother may be superior, it is only of the same pedigree as all others." Not that. Not simply that" God as Mother is the most important aspect of so many aspects of Brahma."

But that, Brahman itself is Mother, as soon as the very idea of " I am alone. I can not feel joyful. Let me procreate " originates. All aspects are different aspects after Brahma's Aspect as Mother and originating from " God as Mother". Whether you call them an aspect of Brahma or God as Mother, is immaterial.

To make myself more clear, Brahma is the river and God as Mother is the Waterworks Reservoir. All the pipes big or small in the whole city, run from the reservoir itself. It is NOT, that some are from that reservoir, some though passing through the reservoir are from the river itself or some are directly from the river without having to pass through the reservoir.

This is what I mean, when I say Mother is Personal God or personal Brahma or when I use the Sanskrit name "Brahma-Swarupini". I am only recording my belief. 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 and mistiness about "Mother". I have to commit myself with a clarity and definiteness even though I may be wrong, or considered to be wrong and may not be agreed with. ( Pages 1 to 5 MAI SAHASRANAMA ).

Let "Mother's " conception be anything. One who lives his life with Love, Service, Devotion and Self-surrender is a Mai-ist. I am extremely over cautious against the creeping in of the old degeneration of this Mai Conception. Often illustrations are given. Mother Seetaa between Rama and Lakshman, without whose Grace and going away aside, Lakshman cannot see the face of Rama, is Maya, and not MAI of Mai-ism. Similarly, in some other instance, a cloth merchant's Wife immediately supplies a certain requirement of their Guru, then and there, with her own powers, while he could not get the same from the Husband himself, for days together. Here, I would not agree to the association of this illustration with Mai talks. I am extremely afraid of misunderstandings in the minds of people. No repetition of the distant most chance of mistaking Mai as Maya, or the wife of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh. No Vaamaachaaras, No animal and human sacrifices. No Devadasis. No Ghat-Kanchukis, No black-magics, 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 her kitten is quite different from that of a rat. Who can escape, in the cat-and-rat relationship between God and man ??

506. Anyway, whatever Swamiji was to Mother, whether he had a soft corner in his heart of hearts for Mother and Motherhood (of course I hold my belief, he had), or was only a dry sordid Adwaitist, Mother got the best out of him and his gigantic intellectual powers, to clear all weeds. Hindus began to think seriously about their religion and began to feel the highest joy with pride, at least on the raising up of Hinduism in the estimation of the world and of the West. Both these highly illustrious souls have been deified. There is no Hindu home where these two Avataric Incarnation souls (of Universal Mother and Shiva) are not venerated, at least through their pictures on walls, besides in the worship rooms.

In this modern age, physical conquest depends mostly on money and religious conquest mostly on intellect. An intellectual conquest had to be won before the world would be returning to religion, and that conquest was so admirably and wonderfully won by Swami Vivekanand, through what he called "Adwaitism" and "Practical Vedanta "

507. Founder says: Getting into an analysis of wheels within wheels, just after the departure of Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekanand perhaps also foresaw the possibility of an abuse of continuing the newly flowing Mother-Current of the most divine form, which originated from Paramahamsa. In a word, the world was not mature enough for deep diving in the ocean of religion. and that too for diving and discovering and possessing the deepest lying pearl of true religiosity. Perhaps Swamiji thought " Let people enjoy the sea-breezes encamping on its shore." Universal intellect-satisfying Adwaitism was best suited for the mass of an easy-going routine-living, which was more than three-fourth dipped in materialism.

    Adwaitism dispenses with routine and ritualism and all the preliminary stages enjoined under Dwaitism. It would be extremely hard to discern a pukka atheist, with speech-cleverness and distinguish him from a true Adwaitist, from any of his external ways of living. Who knows, what is there finally in the vacuum created, after " No No No " about everything? It may be either the Immeasurable Divine Knowledge and Truth and Bliss of the biggest " Yes," or it may be only a vacuum with the supreme-most 

" No " and " Nothing." The highest and the lowest stages have almost an exchangeable external aspect and appearance. Only the true recognisers can recognise the contents of the last and highest

 " Vacuum ".

    Who would not be enamoured of a religion of " perfect freedom"?? " You are free" ?? Who would not feel elated, on being himself called a God ?? Who would not like being pampered with " You are no sinner "?? Who would not crave for a prerogative of exemption as " Actions don't bind you "? and " sins don't touch you"? One out of hundred alone can get the truly Adwaistic outlook and can emancipate himself with this highest philosophy. For the rest, it is an escape and a recess from the routine and religious discipline, customs and beliefs.

    Adwaitism, as preached by Swami Vivekanand, was an eye-opener for the West and westernised East. It has laid down a clear way for posterity if it decides to follow, just on the lines, and in the manner of so many best of the brains and hearts, that followed Swamiji in his own lifetime, then and thereafter.

    Dwaitism, without Adwaitistic principles accepted whenever necessary, is like a wax or camphor doll. Adwaitism without necessary Dwaitism principles is a road metal piece or a glass piece. A sincere true religious aspirant needs both. When a nation or an individual is drooping under the crushing consciousness of its weaknesses, it requires a cheering stimulant. It has, however, to be seen that an overdose of the stimulant does not bring in violence and wildness. The balance has to be maintained.

    Founder says: I am led to believe, he found the world to be still immature for launching a new movement with the stamping of a religion, because of the few lines that I read at the end of Paramahamsa's life. That seriousness was not there; and on the contrary, abuse was possible.

508. Here are few lines referring to the point :

     " Many devotees fell a victim to the most serious blunder, due to their lack of comprehension of the significance of the Paramahamsa's life."

     " His marvellous austerities and self-abnegations had been performed long before their advent, and they failed to see the adamantine foundations of his extraordinary manifestations of emotion. Girish Chandra Ghosh, who believed the master to be an Incarnation of God, publicly announced his conviction; and his invitation to everyone to accept his Ideal and follow in his footsteps, proved to be disastrous. With none of his sincerity, some went about declaring that they had given Sri. Ramakrishna, the power-of-attorney for themselves, and had, therefore, no need of spiritual discipline."

     " Some spread the theory that Sri Krishna, Sri Gauranga and Sri Ramakrishna were identical, and some busied themselves with tracing the identity of the Master's devotees with those of other Incarnations. Those who developed the greatest symptoms of sentimentality were worthy of the highest place."

     " The matter reached its climax when Goswami declared that while he was meditating in his room, Sri Paramahamsa had appeared before him in flesh and blood and that he had actually been able to feel him. The sentimentality of the devotees was at its highest. Some would fall into partial trances accompanied with 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 Sri Paramahamsa's divine power."

509. " Swami Vivekanand foresaw the baneful effect of such meaningless emotion and set himself to stem the tide. He said that those physiological changes were the result of mere nervous excitation. People feigned a good deal. It was discovered that these effusions were in some cases feigned and the result of rehearsals at home."

510. This description so very clearly shows that the world was too immature then for a change. Swami Vivekananda must have surely seen, that the change from irreligion to religion was a good thing, but a religion of superstitious abuse and exploitation was nothing good, if not worse.

511. From these facts, Founder says, it is not at all unlikely that Swami Vivekanand might have had at his heart extremely tender feeling about Motherhood of God, and yet he would have liked to give no significance to the Motherhood of God, although he knew it was the main most characteristic and salvation-conferring secret of his Guru.

512. Founder says," Thus, in my opinion, I see no incongruity in my theory, either because Paramahamsa did not insist Motherhood of God or Swami Vivekanand was Adwaitist -I mean the theory about God being as Mother and Paramahamsa being as Mother's Child and his being deputed by Mother to show to the world, what was under preparatory readiness to be presented to the world in the shape of Universal Mother's Religion - I mean MAI-ISM.

512 [A]. It became indispensable, in the middle of my writing the manuscript after I had once finished the whole, that I must have a glance, at the Life of Swami Vivekanand  ( on or about 6-7-1951, Mother's day - Friday). I could do that only hurriedly.

After going through the life, I re-confirm I find nothing wrong or in-congruent in my belief theory, and revelation to me by Mother. On the other hand, I have seen quite an undreamt-of picture of both these supermen and their work, which gives every support to the revelation.

On Founder's birthday 23-12-1949, the Founder had an inspirational illumination."God saw the need of a Universal Religion, with fewest observances and entanglements, and freest latitude in all legal legitimate harmless moral virtues and righteous activities of mankind. God became "Merciful Mother". Mother sent Paramahamsa as the first Universal Mother's Child. She further got Her work of spreading"Universality with Love and Service" through Paramahamsa's disciple Swami Vivekanand. Somehow the main current was deflected from Motherhood to Hinduism, Vedantism and Adwaitsim. This gradual sinking of the Mother-intended Universal Religion into its parental individual religion in course of decades was saved by Mother on the reappearance of the Motherhood conception in 1932, Mother Herself boldly declared  The Universal Religion of Mai-ism on 2-9-1932.T he revelation meant, there was a consistent continuity.

The revelation gave a problematic controversy to the Founder, to deeply think about the various pros and cons, as, before 1949, he had absolutely very little idea, about the allied ness, and the now revealed continuity.

With every belief about the revealed continuity, the Founder had concluded, that whatever appeared to him as an incongruency, was as a result of his own deficiency of illumination, about the Divine Incomprehensible Unknowable Future and Mother's Divine Will.

The question of the questions was, what Paramahamsa in his most natural constituents and colour was. Was he the First Mother's Child as the Revelation announced and proclaimed, or an Adwaitist as has been superficially inferred from the subsequent development. The Founder was assured of one fact on reading Paramahamsa's life, viz., that he was Mother's Child up to the end of his life, and that Motherhood of God was the soul of his very life. 

The Founder requests the readers to go through the Life, themselves, without the reflections of any back lights and cutting off all connections with what subsequently followed. It is a blunder to believe the Guru to be an Adwaitist, simply because the Disciple was an Adwaitist, especially when there is ample first-hand direct information. In the past religious history of Hindus, there have been not few instances of a Dwaitistic Guru having an Adwaitistic disciple and vice versa. A Shishya may have for the Guru, the greatest Love and worshipfulness as high to God Himself, and yet the views and beliefs of the disciple may be different. That is so, that highest love and reverence is a personal one, for what the Guru himself is, and not necessarily for the beliefs and philosophies of the Guru.

The Founder solicitously appeals to all independent unbiased unprejudiced religious thinkers with a comparative study of all the religions and sub-religions of the world. Along with all the past religions, let MAI-ISM also be placed there - the Universal Religion of Divine Mother of Love, Service, Devotion and Self-surrender. Please be of a pure Divine Illuminated impartial intellect and decide for yourself to which religion, would you decide Paramahamsa to belong. In the ocean of which waters, and of which religion would he have been most happy? Be extremely serene. If a certain key does not fit in, in a particular lock, well, there should be no hide and seek. Boldly say out, it does not fit in. Try all the locks you know of, but including Mai-ism. Which lock did this particular key open, laying out all treasures under the lock for the benefit of the whole humanity?

The Founder says: I suggest the second alternative, in order to establish the truth of the revelation. Imagine to yourself, that the then world fully knowing Paramahamsa as God-Incarnate had approached Paramahamsa, to lay down the principles of a new religion for them to follow, as Hinduism had been already complex, unwieldy, indefinite and unfollowable in the Modern Age. In that case, what would he have said? The Founder boldly asserts, he would have said in fewest words "Surrender yourself to the Universal Mother unconditionally  and cheerfully, with Love, Service and  Devotion and leave the rest to Her."

Next, "Why did Mai-ism not start in right earnest with Paramahamsa himself??" It was an age when Hindus were infatuated with the West. Paramahamsa can't go ahead unless the Hindus had a clarion call of "Go Back" from the West. Brahmo Samaj was in full swing and Paramahamsa's life-dedicated disciples formed their group, at the fag-end of Paramahamsa's life.

The Founder had another most important fact known (for himself), from the life of Paramahamsa, although it was personal and sentimental matter. It was the synchronization of the highest happiness morning of Paramahamsa and the time of Founder's own birth.

This much established the most intimate connection of Paramahamsa and Mai-ism. That made the Founder extremely anxious to know what Swami Vivekanand was in his true natural constituents and colours and waters.  The Founder so very fondly hoped, Swamiji was equally a Mother's Child, as good as his Guru. If some vital facts of his life directly confirmed that he had the soft corner for Mother and Universal Motherhood, then other seeming incongruencies could easily be reconciled. 

The West can be brought to its highest awakened sense of admiration for Hinduism, only through the most unique and most intellectual and philosophical portion of Hinduism, viz. Adwaitism. " God as Mother" was a foreign Ideal for the West. It would have been shocking, sacrilegious and in the opinion of some, even an antagonistic Ideal, set up by Satan to " God as Father". For Hindus themselves at home in India, he had foreseen, the old devil ready to rush in as soon as doors were opened. The Founder, on reading the life of Swami Vivekananda, has reasons to believe, he has so often sought and shouted for the Mother's Grace , and that he was in the heart of his hearts  as good the Mother's Child  as his Guru , but that for certain reasons  and circumstances, he kept up his love to Mother, most secretly to himself, lest the work assigned to him, viz., the spreading of Universality with Love and Service, may suffer, on being pulled away towards  Renunciation, Devotion, Concentration, Samadhi, etc. As stated in his letter to Mai-ist brothers G.S.D. and S.S.D., in 1951, Founder's personal confidential conclusion is, Vivekanand was an "Adwaitist" like the great Shiva, by his very being and temperament, but he was brought down by Mai and Paramahamsa, from that highest pedestal position, as he alone can do the world-changing work  and as his love for his Guru was unimaginably deep and dying. The Philosopher was made to sweat as an Engineer, a battlefield Royal Engineer, an R.E.  The Inner nature's Adwaitism, however, so often asserted itself. After the work was over, the philosopher merged in philosophy.   

 512 [ B ]   The life of Swamiji has shown the hardest struggling contest. One's adjusting one's life to what one believes and pleases one most, on the one hand, and on the other, to the discharging of duty, with a perfect performance of the work assigned to one. Swamiji had his life-sucking mission work assigned to him by Divine Mother, and by his own Guru, viz., spreading of " Universality with Love and Service ". His whole life was a life of " worried work," assigned to him, requiring a tremendous indefatigable energy and not of high idle talks, imaginary philosophies, an easy blissful renounced life, and a happy living of Samadhi-ecstasies etc. Again, it has been, somehow, the invariable practice of all the devotees of Hindu Mother in the past, to be extremely secretive about their love and devotion to Divine Mother, and Swamiji did not choose to make an exception of himself. It is also very likely that Swamiji had before him the usual centuries-old Hindu conception, with which he was not at all satisfied. His heart might have even possibly rebelled. The universal straight and simple Mai-istic conception was not there before the world. It was only in an embryonic stage.

     The Founder says things will be more clear to thinkers if they fully realise the fact that every Superman or saint has a certain assigned work, and such one loses himself heart and soul in the assigned work, leaving all other We matters and issues as practically nonexistent. Unless that single-mindedness is there, no work can be done perfectly. In his inner heart of hearts, he had no great value, whether the world knew or called him as a Hindu Digvijeta (controversial victor), or even as a Hindu, or an Adwaitist, or a Vendatist, or otherwise. What all the twenty-four hours of his day was before his eyes, and revolving in his mightiest brains, was his supreme devotion to his Guru as God, and the establishment of " Universality with Love and Service".

    Let us see, however, Swamiji's mind regarding Mother. The Founder came across one of the Swamiji's quotations: " Real well-being of India will commence from the day, the worship of the Divine Mother will truly 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 town and village, and where their worship has come down to us from centuries??

    If people have a deep sense, it was a prophecy, about the conception of the Divine Mother, the new requirement of propitiating and the new method of worship, which were to truly begin under MAI-ISM, that was soon following.

     The Founder's deep study of the life of Swamiji has made him to conclude, that the Swamiji's highest emphasis was on living the life of Universality, Love and Service and that if that was the soul and essence of his teachings, " Adwaitism " is only a misfortuned misnomer. We all know that Adwaitism is, from centuries, how Adwaitists have preached, believed and lived, right from the First Adi-Shankaracharya to the latest Adwaitistic Mahatma, and how far it means or does not mean " Love and Service to one and all, regardless of caste, creed and colour ".

     Coming to the first point about his highest emphasis, we have the following lines in his poem, on the very first page of his Life. 

" Formulas of worship, control of breath Science, philosophy and systems varied; Relinquishment, Possession and the like, All these are but delusions of mind. Love, Love, that is the one thing. The soul of the Treasure. Who loves all beings, without distinction He indeed is worshipping best, his God."

     Readers should have an extremely subtle understanding. " Hinduism " is an individual religion, and Adwaitism is only a philosophical system of Hinduism. Readers, please just tell me, whether he was a Hindu, or an Adwaitist, or a pioneer spade-worker and seed-sower of a Universal Religion of Love and Service?, call it Ramakrishnism or Mai-ism ??. The very first page of " Mother's Message of Mai-ism "- a pocket booklet- gives you the six tenets. " Mother smiles, on one's trying to love all, to one's best", and "Mother saves, on one's trying to serve all, with one's best" etc.

    Let it be clearly understood, the teachings of Ramakrishna and Vivekanand, as summed up from an impartial deep study of their lives, on being religionised, lead you to Mai-ism, independently arrived at, by Divine Mother's Grace. 

     Have you heard any Adwaitist's name, even that of the Adi Shankaracharya, any time associated with any movement or any Institute, which had or has been conducting any such humanitarian activities, as, reliefs during famines, floods, epidemics, earthquakes, hospitals, schools and colleges, widow homes, orphanages etc??. Wherefrom can come that dying readiness, with a huge-most sacrifice to run sweat and perspire, in the hearts saturated with the belief and notion of the unreality and delusion of the world??  Who could run with an eagle's flight through burning desert sands, to fetch water from a mirage?, for a thirsty child near him, and for one whom he knows to be an immortal soul, confined in a " sometimes old and sometimes new " and " ever and easily changing " cloth-like perishable body ?? "Universal Love and Service," has no direct descendantship from Adwaitism. In fact, unless you twist and apply torsion to "Adwaitism" with a new definition, or go back to its very fundamental absolute constituents, and try hard to anyhow establish the relationship, there is not even immediate and direct relationship. A real relationship is to be seen in the rights and duties each one exercises in another's home.

     The Founder says: " Why? only Adwaitism of the Hindus? The Ideal of Universal Love and Service in practice, and to the extent and intensity of conducting Institutes for humanitarian works, is conspicuously absent in Hinduism itself, as a whole. We find no monumental works of the said nature, to lay our finger upon. At least, I have not heard or seen any such service rendered by any Hindu religious temples or Institutes. Of course, I must admit, I have known one variety, viz., brahmins' and beggars' feeding. Except that, I have not seen even such a simple thing, as free distribution of medicines during epidemics.  "When dying or surviving is a destined fact and the soul is immortal in a perishable body, and the world is a delusion, why that violent wild madness of spending away one's whole health and wealth ?" The modern Hindu, neither here nor there, and of a chaotic religious understanding asks.

     The element of " Service " and that too " Universal and with Love " is a new trait of the New Era. Let us see further about the " Universality " as a part of Adwaitism, in practice. Had any Adwaitist ever thought, talked over, or written about the need of bringing and uniting East and West together ??

" Much nearer by mutual give and take"? Hinduism even considered it a sin to cross the seas. Hinduism is as dear to me as to you, but for Heaven's sake, don't twist, suppress or deny facts.

    Is not "Universal Love and Service" a new trait, a new thought and a new forthcoming flash of a New Universal Religion to come?? Or, is it not the demand of the philanthropic Universal-minded people of the modern world towards that end, irrespective of any religious considerations??

     Let us not keep our eyes closed with mere Hinduism-pride. If you like, you may take the opposing attitude. But if you agree that humanitarian service and activity should be considered as necessary qualities and proofs of religiosity, Christianity would stand in that respect, much higher than Hinduism. Just contrast, what Christians have done for non-Christians, with what Hindus have done even for Hindus themselves, let alone for non-Hindus.

     If the very soul of Swamiji's Religion, which we find multiplied and practised by more than a hundred big and small R. K. P. Institutes all over the world, is "Universal Love and Service". I ask "Is Swamiji a mere Hindu Adwaitist??"

     Which Adwaitist had gone to sow the seeds of "Love and Service" in Christianity?? In stern reality of proper logical thinking, humanitarian activities of a Universal nature legitimately fall, in the category of one of the functions of a Universal Religion, which accepts Love and Service as its important commandments. It is a general characteristic of the "Universal Religiosity" in the heart of a man, whether he is a follower of any individual religion or a Universal Religion, or is a man who does not believe in God or Religion but only believes in loving and serving Humanity. Please note that Mai-ism takes in its embrace, even the last-stated class of men.

     The Founder states "Swami Vivekanand used his highest practical wisdom, of honouring and retaining the centuries-old honoured charmful popular Hindu words, of Adwaitism and Vedanta. These most important words of Hinduism helped him to do his unparalleled work in the West, and as stepping stones for an access to the Parliament of Religions, where only delegates of "some existing religion" can have an access. Swamiji rendered the most splendid service to Hinduism, the parallel whereof may never be seen, perhaps, even in the future. But here, we are for the subtlest analysis. Swamiji made his own definitions and interpretations. He bridged over the aforesaid evident incongruency, by attaching the word "Practical" to Vedanta or Adwaitism. If at all institutes of a humanitarian-activity-nature, have a fascination for the name "Adwait". the proper denomination would be "Universal Absolute Practical Adwaitism."

     Often a great confusion arises, as a result of some religious thinkers taking the proper noun-meaning of a word, and some the common-noun meaning. For instance, "Sanatana Dharma" as a proper noun practically means "Hinduism", and yet so many schools may gladly accept the common noun meaning "The Religion of eternal Truths." This sort of confusion has to be cleared up, someday, finally, either by religious custodians or by people themselves, to evade misunderstandings and comedy of errors.

512 [ C ] The Founder requests, let there be no foolish misunderstanding or an imputation of my personally affiliating my cause, with these Incarnations of Divine Mother and Shiva Incarnate. The fact of facts and the hardest fact is, that it has been impossible for me (in spite of my repeated efforts), to talk about Mother and Mother's tenets of Universality, Love and Service, without a reference to Paramahamsa. I make it, as a clean-breast confession, that I could have dispensed with a reference to Swami Vivekanand, but the Cow vehemently refuses to be worshipped without her Calf.

     Mai-ism had started independently and strangely enough with quite an erroneous notion, about what Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekanand and R.K.P. missions were in their natural constituents. My pitiable ignorance in this direction for such a long period, practically up to 1949, nearly eighteen years after the starting of Mai-ism, has been attributable to the misleading misnomer of "Hindu Adwaitism." Were it not for the inspirational illumination, 

I would have never even looked in that direction. What a havoc and life-long ignorance, a mere word but a misleading word, or thought creates !!!

     Mai-ism does not beg for strength from Hindus or Hindu scriptures or from the followers of Shri Paramahamsa or Shri Vivekanand. I have so often and repeatedly tried, writing, cancelling and re-writing, to remain as far away from a reference to them as possible. Am I a fool to invite conflicts bitterness and oppositions? But it has been impossible- just as any well-construction or a building would be filled up or fall down, so long as the Kula-Devi and Batuka-Bhairava were not invited, worshipped and pleased. 

    All this is not beating about the bush. Till 23-12-1949, Paramahamsa and Vivekanand were nothing nearer to me, in blood, than say Lord Gauranga Mahaprabhu and Shri Jagad Guru Shankaracharya. I had a distant relationship with Paramahamsa, 

in as much as he had approached Mother as Mother's child. Regarding Swamiji, my notion was this: "He was a Glorifier of Hindu Adwaitism and had won his battle on the Western battlefields, and in those courts, with a brief for Hinduism." My work of Mai-ism was of quite a different nature. The first earth-and-sky-difference was that he was for Hinduism and I for a Universal Religion. He was for Adwaitism, the Unreality and delusion about the Universe. I was for Love and Service. He was for "I am God." "Aham Brahma Asmi". I was for "Mother!! Thou art everything." He was proclaiming to the world, there was no nation on the World as religious as Hindus. I had seen that Hinduism had the highest philosophy and was the best religion the world has ever seen, but that Hindus themselves had a good deal of work to set right their own house in order, and that they had to rise above their well-froggism, and that there was a North Pole and South pole difference between their religion as in their Scriptures and as in their practical living of daily life. Whereas he saw the greatest point of pride that Hindu priestcraft was the cheapest in the world, I saw the hopelessness of the Hindu nation, which could not systematically constitutionally and satisfactorily provide for even a bit of bread and a piece of rag for its saints, (not to speak of laying all spare means at the feet of its saints, to ameliorate Hinduism more and more). Whereas he thought the West had to sit near the feet of the East to learn many things, I believed the East also had so many things to learn from the West.

     I was not much interested in the work of Swami Vivekanand, as he had the portfolio of Hinduism-conquest in foreign countries, whereas I was interested in home affairs of setting the Hindu Home in order. I had nothing like a feeling missingness, which would prompt me to study indispensably, the lives of these two super-men.

     To add fuel to fire, although I had talks about Swami Vivekanand with so many highly religious educated persons, not a single person had opened my eyes. What, each and everyone I talked with during such a long period of years together, gave me to understand, was that Swamiji proved that Hinduism was the best of all religions of the world and that there was no nation inhabiting the surface of the world, that was as religious as the Hindus.

     This was my foolish notion till 1950 or even 1951. Can anyone imagine, how much I have jumped with joy when I saw that Swamiji was for a Universal Religion of Love and Service, and not " Hindu Adwatism " ??

     After the said revelation, as I went through the lives of Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekanand, through Mother's Grace, wrappers after wrappers, and envelopes after envelopes and coverings after coverings were torn asunder by Mother, and I began to see things deeper and deeper, more and more repenting and cursing myself for my darkest ignorance. Swamiji was not merely, as I had thought, an academical genius, a master of scriptures lores theories and philosophies, not simply a Shankaracharya of new age, but was as immensely practical, and as " seeing things as they were" uninfatuatingly, as I could have wished, to raise Hinduism on removing its evils to its past incomparable glory. The more I read the life of Swami Vivekanand, the more I began to feel, not only allied ness but even synonymousness. I wrote to my sister S.R.D. in 1951, "if I had read the life of Paramahamsa and Vivekanand's life and works before 1931, Mai-ism would not have been brought into existence. But everything is mother's play will and Disposition. Mother kept me purposely in darkest ignorance to get her work done."

     Where is the flaw in the above conclusion? Mother's playful test; my false offense-taking with mother. Reading in 1931 could never have been so illuminative and ecstatic as in 1951, after twenty years of Mai-istic working.

     That is what I am repeatedly prattling-under the words " God's Grace, Guru's Grace, realisation and illumination". Big hubbubs around ciphers without these four are the Greatest handicaps to true religion.

     Swamiji had also seen, as I could see later, on reading his literature, the narrow-mindedness, disunion, enviousness, talk-indulgence, absence of any action, absence of solid work service or sacrifice, watchfulness about no wear and tear talk while tom-tomming one's religiosity, revolving in the same groove of the same old grinding mill, no dynamical progressiveness, too great an importance given to bath-and-kitchen rules, etc. In a word, so many things which had held Hinduism back, and which required a clean sweeping out, if Hinduism were to be reinstated in its past glory and dazzlingness. 

     Just imagine the joy of a Rishi or a Sage, who though happy and well-placed, is in an entire oblivion, regarding his parentage and lineage, when he has the revelation about his parent. The very first thing for the Founder, as a result of his hurrah and Eureka ("I have discovered it"), was to send a declaration to the "Shakti" periodical, stating that the Embryo-Founder of Mai-ism was Mai-Swarupa Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Regarding Swami Vivekanand, as the Founder may be brought into troubles of controversies, he has, to his greatest sorrow, desisted from using the same highest denomination. However, the Founder in his childlike manner began to shout out to all Mai's nearest devotees, with the immortal never-dying hopefulness, and said: "If any day Mai-ism takes root and has the shape of an independent religion, please don't forget that I am the third Mai-Swarupa." "Paramahamsa principally taught Motherhood, Mother-child relationship, Devotion and Self-surrender. Swami Vivekanand taught Universality Love and Service". Universality taught by Paramahamsa actually, by temporarily living the completely transformed life, in the matter of belief regarding all Deities Religions and Founders, was amplified and enlarged and extended by Vivekanand, to include each and every person of the whole Humanity inhabiting the earth.

     MAI sent Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekanand to teach the world. Each one principally preached to the world three tenets of Mai-ism, and the teachings of both Incarnations found their fulfilment in the compact whole of MAI-ISM, declared by Mother on 2nd September 1932. 

     The Founder's all-embracing solicitous prayer to Mother was this: "The Ocean supplied the salt without which the world cannot live, the Tide carried the salt to the different shores of different countries and nations. Paramahamsa and Vivekanand, on a much higher plane than that of a Founder, did not waste their time and precious life-moments over theorisation. Paramahamsa was busy all his life creating "Mother's children of devotions and self-surrender," and Swami Vivekananad took up the work of turning the worthiest persons in West and East, to dedicate their lives to the various movements of reliefs and humanitarian activities, and to live the life of Universal Love and Service."

     "What does the Ocean or the Tide care, to think of Salt-pans?? Mother has made the Founder, an instrument to talk to the world about the need for salt-pans. The need of Religionisation. The Ocean is the supplier, the Tide is the Carrier and the Salt-pan is the Distributor."

     Heartlessness, unconcernedness, alien ship and inactivity cannot help the modern world. Mother has to descend to the mass-plane of and in Love and Service. Readers should not commit the blunder of thinking, I am in any way having a discounted value for Adwaitism. If the world were in its truest and highest planes, Love and Service would have remained stationary at their really much inferior values, as factors of the Highest True Religiosity. One or two centuries before, it would have been simply redundant and ridiculous to be talking about the religionisation of "Service." Service and Sacrifice, Love and Compassion, were actually flowing in the lives of men and societies and communities, in varied relationships. But now a small tiny commonplace apple has come in demand, when the largest jackfruit has been found to be corroded, crow-pecked or of a wooden stuff. It is better to begin true religiosity, even at the lowest step, rather than be merely talking about heavens but be crawling in darkest cellars. 

     True Adwaitism is surely most venerable and worshippable, but with anything short of it, the highest religious people must be made to be bent to the Ideals of Universality, Love and Service. True Adwaitistic outlook and experience has been described by Paramahamsa in these words: "I am seeing that Mother has become everything. Men and animals appear to be frame-works, coated with skin, in which She is moving their heads and limbs. Houses, men, cattle, all seem to be made of wax, as if of the same substance as wax."

     Anything short of this continued experience is Dwaitism practically and Adwaitism academically.    

   512 [D ]  Next we proceed to the still more deep question of the importance of Religion, and the need of "Religionisation" of highest principles of life and living. The first question is, whether our parental Hinduism, as it has come down to us, with all its beliefs and misbeliefs. needs a reform and a revision. There are bound to be so many people, who admit so far, "Yes, we admit so far, we also think, it is necessary, Hindus should rise to live their life with the spirit of Universality, Love and Service. We also agree. Paramahamsa and Swami Vivekanand were of the same opinion. But, the elements of God as Mother, though in a different form, are there, already with us. Devotion and Self-Surrender we have in ample abundance. Where is the need for striking a separate off-shoot?? You go on preaching as you think best. Paramahamsa or Swami Vivekanand had no intention or idea of reviving Hinduism, or any idea of establishing a separate individuality of a new religion".

     Here, one most practical thing should be stated. If you want a certain portion of a population to be trained and to be gaining a unique efficiency, in respect of certain truths, you can't 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 unworked rough ingredients in the huge 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, in the huge vessel. All the different off-shoots of Hinduism, have finally enriched Hinduism itself, but the segregation for the purposes of bringing up a certain efficiency has been indispensable.

     The Founder says: Ongoing through the Life of Swami Vivekanand, my idea and conclusion have been, that Swamiji was an original independent religious thinker. He was a revolutionary religious reformer. He was an out and out challenge to the usual long-custom-established ways of living and thinking of Hindus, and especially about the duties and ways of living of Hindu religious preachers and Sanyasins. He was for an out and out overhauling of Hinduism.

     The Founder emphatically states: The need of overhauling, reconsidering and reforming and resetting Hinduism in a new order, is not simply a fad of mine. Well-known saints of high repute have agreed with me stating "I am in complete agreement with you." The modern religious world on an average thinks so, except for a few fanatic frogs of the parental well. Please don't think, these latter have no higher subtler sense. What they would say is: "It must be our own man, who should talk about the need.-Our honoured some great man, mostly a Sannyasin from Haridwar or Rameshvaram. If YOU say it, say it, as a commentary or a corollary of our own scriptures, and of our own Hinduism. Leave it to us whether to accept or not. If at all we accept, it will be because of our own deciding, as a part of our scriptures and our religion. Nothing will be acceptable to us on its own merits unless it bears the stamping of our scriptures, our religion, and one of our The Wisest and Holiest men".

     The Founder continues: "What a joy did I feel, when by Mother's Grace I fell upon a certain quotation of Swami Vivekanand, which proved that in the bottom-most and inner-most layers of his heart, there were offshoots of a strong desire of revising Hinduism, or for a new Universal Religion, or, for both. His aim, as he himself had written long before, to one of his disciples, was: "To put the Hindu Ideas into English and then make out of the dry philosophy and intricate mythology and queer startling 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 everyday 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. This is my task."

     What a huge overhauling suggestion!!! Does that leave much beyond a skeleton and a name?

     Nothing can be more convincing than this, that Swamiji was for an out and out overhauling of Hinduism and making a religion- a religion so easy that a child can grasp.

     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 easy and graspable religion, a Universal Religion of Love and Service!! That was his task which was attempted, and which, surely, none can have an idea of, except those, in whose mind that new idea would flash forth, with divine inward inspiration to work in the new direction.

     The Founder says: I do recognize the right of every religion, to amendments and even substantial and even complete transformations. So many religions have exercised that right. But so long as any such solid acceptance, confirmation and undifferentiated assimilation is not there, what Ramakrishna teaches is Ramakrishnism, what Vivekanand preaches is Vivekanandism, and what Mai-ism religionises is Mai-ism, although all the latter three are extremely allied, interconnected, almost synonymous and practically the same.

     The Founder continues: I am touching an extremely delicate point here. I would be plain and say, the religion of R.K.P. Mission with its worship of Mai-swarupa Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is Ramakrishnism, whether such a denomination is given and popularised, or not. I am personally doubtful, whether the old schools of Hinduism recognise the R.K.P. Mission as a part, piece and parcel, of Hinduism, as a drop of the same liquid. I am equally feeling, on the other hand, that the Mission would very likely say as Mai-ism has said: "We are Hindus, but not Hindus alone." When the Mission has got sufficient flying strength, on the passing of some few decades more, Mother Mai hasten that day, it will be impossible either for the Mission or the public, to smoothly and efficiently pull on, without introducing the distinguishing denomination "Ramakrishnism".

     Hindus are under a delusion when they believe Swami Vivekanand was a Hindu Adwaitist. Swamiji had maintained the reverence of those Sacred Words, but his definition of "Adwaitism" was quite different. Further, Hindus are under quite a wrong impression (to which I was also a victim), when they believe Swamiji had, as the purpose and goal of his life, a Dig-vijay (controversial conquest) for Hinduism in the West. He was not actuated by the spirit of proving and establishing the superiority of Hinduism over other religions; but his work in the West was that of opening up the dormant divinity within the hearts of the materialism-dipped world, to enable people in the West to understand and live their own religion, in a much nobler, subtler and more practical manner. Of course, Swamiji thereby created the highest sympathy and reverence for Hinduism, then in the abysmal depth, while doing the said work, and raised Hinduism to the highest estimation in the eyes of the West. Swamiji achieved a task which was never attempted and did it beyond all imaginations.

     I am inclined to believe, the R.K.P. Mission is living, in practice, the Universal Religion of Love and Service, around the central Incarnation Deities or Gods of Paramahamsa and Vivekanand (I myself would call them Mother and child), although under the name of "ADWAIT". There will surely come a day when it will be necessary to say and admit that their "Adwaitism" is different from "Hindu Adwaitism".

     The Founder says: Once you agree to the need for an overhauling, screening, reshaping and practicability of a religion, you have to make a different or new denomination. Religion is not simply the collection and arrangement of toys and a nice display thereof, on some single day or night of a year. The indefiniteness of beliefs, customs and principles of living, and the living as of an ingredient of a huge hotch-potch of innumerable heterogeneous ingredients, can give no practical results of any amendment.

     Why do we need religionisation of certain truths and principles?? Only a diamond can cut a diamond. A Karna, however great a shotsman, has no place in the midst of kings in the Draupadi Swayamvar. Religionisation has its own unique value.

     A mere opinion of however great a superman is, after all, an opinion. The aims and objects of the society are, 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 sow 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 forever. Any truth that has been religionised, has at 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 to age.

  In the finality of 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 ornamentation of theories, philosophies, have little substantial value. They are only the nicest things to praise. Entwinement round a superman has its own time limit, although of centuries. God is God.

     It is the living force that works, and that force has to be regularly developed. and trained, and regulated, as per certain conceptions. Religion is a supernatural force, which has its unfailing Source, in the Infinite and Eternal. Decades and decades, ages after ages, a large number of persons live their lives in conformity with certain beliefs. Every hour and moment, thousands are thinking in a particular same 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, which works wonders.

     Each man is a centre of certain latent powers in him. He has to release them and that requires a teaching-school, with teachers, companions, text-books, registers, examinations, prizes, punishments, impositions and so many things. And such a teaching-school, only a Religion can be.

     The above one is only a common-ground consideration, but on the top thereof, there are much higher considerations, arising "from Soul within and God above". Is it not our experience that we are entirely powerless and dead-like, whenever we have to face a punishment, in respect of what our conscience has condemned? On the other hand, what has made martyrs to go cheerfully straight to the scaffold??

     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 declared 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.

     Some wisest and most virtuous man gives me a recipe of wisdom and virtue. I appreciate, revere and worship him, but what makes it incumbent on me to carry out those instructions? Suppose he commanded me, "I should run, to protect a weak woman in the hands of a ruffian." What I require is the strength to overcome him. I require that someone must be with me. I wish, if I am vanquished, my shouting appeal to others around me should bring forth their aid. I wish I have the most wonderful strength of.  "God knows wherefrom it came." I wish that, on seeing me, the rascal is half unnerved. I wish that I may be congratulated for the risk I ran for a sister of my own, for the sake of a certain principle of my religion. I wish that even if I die, in the effort, at least God smiles on me and welcomes me with "Bravo, you are the rarest of men."

     All that can proceed from Religionisation alone. A religion is under the constant grace and watchfulness care and anxiety of the Eternal God, round whom it is entwined.   

512 [ E ]  A new understanding, a new meaning of life, a new fixing up of the life goal, a new ambition, a new mode of living, a new order of man-to-man relationship, a new reconstitution of religiosity, can not work out except under a new denomination.

     If the authorised, religious custodians of Hinduism take up the question of setting up the Hindu house in order, in view of the modern life, and new conceptions etc., that would need a new denomination as a Revised Hinduism. If there is a huge mass of people, who follow Hinduism, but protest against certain views and customs of the old Hinduism or even Revised Hinduism, that class would follow an altered defined form, needing a new denomination of Protestant Hinduism. Intense lovers of God as Mother, with mother and child relationship, Devotion and Surrender may insist on "Ramakrishnism". Persons living their life with the definite goal of Universal Love and Service may come forth for "Vivekanandism".

     What else can be happier than making amendments as suit different temperaments, and requirements of the modern age??, and reviving the religiosity of the Highest Religion of Hinduism, which has left nothing unexplored, untouched and unsaid?? Personally, I do not get scared, at the idea of so many schools of thought under Hinduism. There is a certain figure of maximum numerical strength, beyond which, the following of a religion, with no personal attention by the Guru to the numerous disciples, becomes simply nominal. If each group does its maximum sincere work of increasing religious efficiency, and there is the co-operation spirit and the constant consciousness of the parental Religion, (then) some constitutional basis of dealing with Religiosity, with mutual sympathy consolidation and constant contact amongst the various groups, gives us the right key. Seeming diversity temporarily accepted, within and undivided unity is the secret. I very much long to see that all the various problems are thrashed out, and some new form of a Revised Hinduism is arrived at. I have every sympathy for the same, although I am independently for Mai-ism- the Universal Religion of God as Mother, Universality, Love, Service, Devotion and unconditional cheerful Self-Surrender.

512-[F] I am blessed. I am made to play the part of a paper-boat-floater in my bucket-ocean. What Mother has in view regarding the future, Mother alone Secondly know. Mother save me from the world's persistent vice of plagiarism. Let those that have helped me, to do what I have been able to do by Mother's Grace, have ample recognition and satisfaction, with reasons to believe that their help to Mai-ism has been doubled, on their help having been carried over, as well, to the Parental Religion of Hinduism. Hinduism should have enough wisdom to accept and honourably welcome amendments on the lines of Ramakrishnism, Vivekanandism, and Mai-ism, which alone would satisfy the modern age.

     Yes, I am blessed. The paper boat is the forerunner to the Incoming Steamer plying between two shores, to carry the worthiest souls, from the shore of worldliness, selfishness, ignorance, distress, misery, pain, poverty, and disease etc., to the shore of relinquishment, renunciation, plentitude, contentment, healthiness, Divine knowledge, Devotional happiness etc.

     Although the past religious greatness of Hinduism and India has been of the highest order, the true religiosity which India can attain and show in future, after necessary reformation and reconstitution and revision, with a renovated ardour, vigour and spirit, is bound to be of a yet higher order because of these new elements, as under.

     Firstly, because the true Universality, one must admit, was not there. Best religious people had a rather limited vision, outlook and heart although they were full of kindness, compassion, pity, goodness, service and sacrifice.

     Secondly, the past religiosity was not of a hot-tried nature and not of a turned-over type, as there was neither the temptation and the handicap and pulling out of materialism, nor the rebellious urge of individualism, nor atheism, each one to assert itself. In a sense, the past religiosity on an average was machine-like, and to some extent, compulsory.

     Thirdly, the future religiosity has the benefit of the West through the sister religions and religious institutes, and comparative study of all religions and religious institutes. Further, now, we have the most useful scientific aids, to help the understanding and practising of the Hindu Religion and Religiosity.

     It is not an impossibility, that if a huge religious wave, starting by Mother's Will, sweeps away all the inherent and foreign evils, Revised Hinduism with whatever is best in Ramakrishnism, Vivekanandism and Mai-ism, accepted incorporated and assimilated, may again resume the lost position of being the recognised Mother of all Religions, of the East and the West, and of the whole World.

513. So much, regarding the intellectual philosophical and worldly interpretation. Coming to the poetic madly devotional interpretation, it gave the Founder a thrill passing through his whole physique when he had a flash, an inspirational glamour, on that very same night of 23rd December 1949.

514. History repeats itself with certain changes in the external forms, which few blessed can believe and interpret. 

     When the world was unbearably oppressed by the demons, Divine Mother descended on earth and conquered them and again established righteousness, peace, prosperity, morality, law and order. 

    Founder says: Let us think deeply about that recurring providential arrangement, so beautifully and forcefully described in Sapta Shati. That tradition of the Mahishamardini gives us the whole clue, to the setting right of irreligious or demoniacal possession of mankind. Don't fly away from the actual facts, because you do not agree with certain views. The tradition proves that when every deity becomes powerless, and the highest deities fail to help the world out, it is Mother, Mother and Mother alone, and Divine Mother's love, that is the highest protective power. The final form of the highest power that vanquished the Invincible Demon, could have as well, and naturally been, some terrible stronger male demon or a male deity, higher than the highest deities. No, it was Mother. Thus, it is the very Hinduism, if Hindus have depth to think and eyes to see, that when nothing else can save them, it is Mother's love that has saved even the deities and will save them and the world. When everything fails, love is the highest Power, Motherhood is the highest conception and Mother is the highest manifestation.

515. Hinduism itself proves it. The worst and most abominable and most unfortunate Hindu mentality is, that a truth, to be appreciated, must come from the mouth of a saffron-robbed tonsured-headed soul, from Haridwar or Rameshwaram. It must come from the Himalayas or Benares, and so on.

516. Every custom and practice starts with a particular wisdom behind it, but later on, comes the ignorance and its abuse. The Founder greatly adores a Sanyasin and is extremely appreciative of the desirability of the practice of a different robe and a different head. But he is referring to the mistaken notion of the people, who either consider that practice to be indispensable for a religious preacher or who so narrow-mindedly think that nowhere else religious wisdom can descend or reside. It is quite necessary, that the man who has renounced the world and lives an entirely different sort of life, should be immediately marked out from others. That saves a lot of misunderstandings and makes many things, clear at the first sight. A divinity uniform. That prevents the rough-shod riding world, from pulling highly illustrious souls to their own impure and dirty planes. The above-stated two extreme views are however entirely wrong. There are some saints who are dressed quite ordinarily and yet are the possessors of great religiosity. People get wrathful when they are told, it is a blunder to believe that high religiosity cannot reside anywhere outside the particular robe and the particular shaven head, as that is an insult to their common sense. However, in practical life, we mark and always observe the most horrible blunder. People must have their minds open and their judging sense, keen unvitiated and unprejudiced, especially while dealing with men and matters, that do not in every way synchronise with their own views and conceptions. 

517. Whatever it be, I repeat Mother's Message here. Motherhood is the highest conception of God if you wish to be saved from irreligion, materialism and atheism and satanism. Are these not all demons? And who saved us from worst demons? Was it not Mother? The next things to be noted are these. When did Mother condescend to help the deities? Only when they all together (wiping out all differences of superiority and inferiority complexes and in full self-surrender spirit) prayed as one. Thus, one by one, I am coming to the universal tenets of Mai-ism. 

    Motherhood is the highest conception, and Mother requires to be praised and propitiated as Mother of all, with self-surrender, devotion, love and service, to be moved to pity. 

     Founder asks   " What? what? what? what made MAHISHA-MARDINI to save the deities from being crushed by Demons ??" 

     Hindus can't realise the truth of truths, in spite of their fullest knowledge about the answer, as their vision is blurred with three thousand three hundred and thirty-three things passing under the name of religion. Let me answer it. 

    " It is Mother's heart, Mother's Love-the feeling of universality and unity amongst different deities, their love and service to Mother and their self-surrender with devotion." 

     Well then, nothing more and nothing less is, what Founder has been preaching as Mai-ism under Mother's command given to him on 2-9-1932. 

518. To complete this portion, Founder believes, history has repeated itself. PARAMAHAMSA WAS MOTHER HERSELF. SWAMI VIVEKANAND WAS MOTHER'S LION. VERY LIKELY, MAI-ISM'S FOUNDER MARKAND IS MARKANDEYA. The Sage, who formulated and utilised the events of the Mother's love to mankind, to invoke Mother's highest blessings and compassion, right from his age to the present age and towards also futurity, to remove all Universal, national and individual sufferings and miseries. Muni Markandeya had not had the prowess of the all-devilishness devouring, roaring and roaming Lion of Mother (Swami Vivekanand). It was impossible for him to have any powers of Mother Herself (Blessed Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa). This poor Mai-Markand with all the might Mother can replenish him with, 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 to all Her children, and with love, service, devotion and self-surrender to God and Guru." 

Jay Mai Jay Markand Mai