Evolution of love

JAI MAA

MAA ANANDAMAYI  was constantly watching me, with Her eyes ever intent on my welfare.
On many days I tried with a strong will to black out all thoughts of Her, but She mocked at every such perverse attempts of mine and captured my mind and reasoning faculty all the more. I felt exhausted by such attempts and was left dumb and inert like a lump of clay. I could not find any means to slake my thirst for Mother’s affection. Thus I began to grow weak and my body hastened towards a crisis.
At last on the 4th of January, 1927 I fell ill. At the very start I began to feel an acute pain in the region of my heart. No medicine could give me relief. Mother came to see me one day and placed Her gentle, soothing hand upon my chest. All my pains subsided with the touch. But the disease continued to take a more and more serious turn. Doctors said, I had developed T.B. A few days later Mother came to me one night, sat by my bed-side and said something by Herself. Long afterwards I learnt from Mother that She had said to the disease [Mother says each disease its specific appearance as distinctly visible to Her as a material form] Thou hast done what thou couldst. Stop from now onwards.” From that time Mother ceased to come to me. During the last few months of acute suffering I had not the good fortune to see Her.
It was necessary for me. The keen desire to see Mother made me forget the pain due to the illness, my mind in those days hovered round Her feet day and night. She pervaded my whole being both inwardly and outwardly. Later I was told that Mother said one day at Shah-bag, She saw blood on all people’s lips. On hearing this remark Pitaji at once came to see me at night. I was then vomiting blood and all my strength was nearly spent. On many occasions Mother used to guide me with Her suggestions for a remedy, long before She was informed verbally about the changes in my illness.
One night a very acute crisis came on. The doctors in attendance declared my case to be hopeless. It was 2 A.M. Heavy rain fell in torrents with a deafening noise. Dogs were barking to make the gloom more frightful. I began to see dreadful visions, all the hairs on my body stood on end. At that time I saw as clearly as in broad daylight Mother sitting on the right side of my pillow. An agreeable surprise stole in upon me. Before the first spell of surprise was over, I found Mother passing Her hands over my head. It was so soothing In an instant I fell into a deep sleep.
From that day on, for about eight to ten months as long as I was confined to bed, I would always feel that Mother sat on my bed near the pillow with a very calm, serene face and would not hand me over to death.
Sometimes when for hours together I could not stand the pain of coughing followed by the spitting of blood, I sued to repeat the name of Mother and soon the intensity of the pain would pass off.
During my illness Mother asked Brahmachari Jogesh to go out for one year to Western India and live on alms only, without any fixed habitation. It might possibly have been intended to divert some of my sufferings.
After some months of illness when I occupied a Government house near Shah-bag, Mother left for Hardwar to attend the Kumbh Mela. My illness had a second serious set-back and a telegram was sent to Mother at Rishikesh. But She did not come. I learnt afterwards that when Pitaji was anxious about me, She said to him, “I have seen Jyotish lying on my lap, quite unconcerned about his illness.”
After about five months of treatment I wanted to test how much strength I had acquired through medical skill. I tried to walk a few steps leaning against the wall of the room. The strain of it caused profuse vomiting of blood the same evening. When the doctor was informed, he left instructions with the inmates of my house that I must lie flat on my bed.
Four or five days later Mother returned to Dacca and came to see me. She enquired, “How do you feel now ?“ I said, “I have not much pain now, but I feel very uncomfortable owing to my not having had a cold bath for a long time. It was the month of Vaisakh. The heat was grilling. Mother sat for some time and then left. Next day at about 1 p.m. She came again with Pitaji . At that time everybody in the house was asleep. My daughter, aged 11 or 12, who was posted to keep watch over me, was also fast asleep. Mother said, “You wanted to bathe; if you are keen on it, there is a tank yonder, go there and have a good bath.”
That tank was about 60 to 80 yards away. As soon as I heard Mothers words, a new strength was infused into my frail body with love and devotion for Her. My body then was but a skeleton. The warning of the physician not to leave my bed flashed through my mind for a moment and vanished away. In this condition as I tottered trying to stand up and take another loin-cloth to put on after the bath, Pitaji at once caught hold of me and led me to the tank. The floor of my house was above 4 ft. above the ground level. I got down the stairs and walked the whole distance. It was a reserve tank with the University Muslim Boarding House standing on its bank. There was also a notice put up by the P.W. Department to the effect that it must not be used for bathing and washing. But that day no inmate of the Boarding House could be seen. In my house too everybody was asleep; I got down into the tank and had a delightful bath. On returning to my quarters I spread out the wet cloth on the line hung up for drying clothes and lay down on the bed taking rest.
No sooner had I spread myself on my bedstead than my daughter awoke. She found Mother sitting by her side. As I walked through the lawn to have a bath, numerous seeds of love-thorn grass (Chorkanta) stuck to the loin-cloth I wore. When my servant Khagen saw the cloth studded with those thorns, his natural inference was that I had walked across the lawn at noon. This was brought to the notice of my wife, who showed that cloth to Mother and complained to Her that I had walked on the lawn at midday against the doctor’s express prohibition.
Mother began to laugh without saying a word. I was really struck with surprise, wondering how I could walk across the open lawn to have a dip in the tank in broad daylight quite unnoticed by anybody and how I could get the strength to stand such an effort. It was a feat quite beyond my comprehension. After three or four months when I left Dhaka for a change to a healthier climate, I told Niranjan all about it. Subsequently when after recovery I resumed my duties at the office, I stated the fact to my physicians who discredited the story altogether. My wife did not at first believe it either. When I described to them the full story they finally came to believe it.
Whilst the disease was in full swing, I developed a very strong desire to eat boiled rice. The attending physicians would not allow me to have it. Niranjan appealed to Mother, saying,—”Ma, Jyotish wants to take boiled rice; the doctors won’t allow it. If he dies, we shall have one great grief that we could not satisfy this desire of his before his death.” Mother laughed and said, “When Jyotish has a desire for it, he should be given rice’. After a few days Pitaji brought some boiled rice from Shah-bag and made me eat it, but nobody noticed it.