Chapter 78Meeting the Mother · The Soup Ceremony

with vital provender for the day, to many a mere occasion for gossip as to how the Mother had behaved with this one or that one (all founded on their own “observation”, imagination and inference); the attitude to it had become twisted. If there had been the right attitude in all and the right use of the contact, it would have been a different matter.

25 March 1937

* Mother has told you what to reply to X about other points. You may add this from me, that all this about Mother’s smile and displeasure is simply the wrong play of the vital in her. It is because so many of the sadhaks were indulging in this wrong play of the vital about Mother’s smile and her pleasure and displeasure and all kinds of revolts and jealousies and anger against etc. that the Pranam had to be stopped. Nothing can be worse for the sadhana than to give play to ignorant vital movements like these. She must throw these things away from her if she wants to make any progress in sadhana.

22 April 1937 The permission for Pranam and meditation cannot be given. In between the Darshans it will now be no longer allowed to people from outside or only in exceptional cases.

14 December 1935

* Why on earth can’t people wait for outsiders to ask for Pranam instead of goading them to come to it? It makes the Pranam cheap and makes people think we are yearning for them to come and make Pranam, which is a damned mistake and not conducive to the dignity of the spiritual life.

25 September 1938

I am trying to sit in concentration [in Bombay], but I am unable to do anything except offering pranams to the Mother.