Playful Divine

- Sabari

When I first met mother in 1988, I was struck by Her sheer simplicity. What resounded within me was “ Truth is simple.” During the course of the morning darshan that first day I met Her, I was further struck by Her playfulness, almost like that of an adorable little puppy! As years have gone by and I have been with Mother, I sometimes still try to reconcile how the starkness of truth is staring in me in the face through such playfulness. This is not easy for one whose mind is hardcore intellectual, always wanting to figure things out. Such is the conditioning of the mind.

How do we go about loosening the mental conditioning we have all been subjected to without replacing it with still yet another conditioning! That was the point I had reached when I met Mother. From my previous spiritual work on myself, I thought I knew all the theoretical answers to questions of that sort, but having no living teacher to actually work on me, I could not loosen by myself the bondage of my tyrannical mind and feelings, trapped in unconsciousness.

How does Mother work on us? We often think that a spiritual teacher will someday whisper some hidden secret in our ears and then we will know the Truth. That is our fantasy. But what Mother ‘does’ is She provides circumstances to arise in the course of daily living that will bring out our ‘stuff’. It can be a long process for us to repeatedly see our tendencies, attachments and aversions, in order to work with them. But having the Mahatma’s grace not only quickens the process but makes the painful severing of our bondage from our concepts bearable, for She provides inspiration.

While just being in Her presence can be inspiring in itself, occasionally She provides something totally unexpected. Once She took us swimming in the backwaters near the Ashram. Mother loves to go swimming and is very playful in the water, so this was an extra special treat.

One Indian girl who did not know how to swim wanted to learn. Teaching her to back-float, two of us held her up as She floated towards Mother. We were walking on a sandbar and all was well until we suddenly reached the end of the sandbar. The drop into deep water was sudden and we both lost our footing. The Indian girl panicked and grabbed onto both my arms. I did not try to fight her off becauseI was afraid that would make her drown.

She fought to stay above water by pushing down on me, and just before going under, I took a deep breath, relaxed, and inside me called out, “ Amma, Amma, Amma, Amma!” My eyes were open and I could see the light of the sun filtering through the murky waters.

All of a sudden two strong arms lifted me up. The woman who saved me later said she had a premonition to come in my direction before the trouble began, as if someone were actually telling her. As I was pulled out of the water, I saw Amma rushing over. She asked if I was all right and if I had swallowed any water. I said that I was fine.

The next morning when I went for darshan, Mother made light of the drowning incident. In a teasing way she said, “ Yesterday, you…” and with Her hands gestured a swimming motion and then a drowning one. She laughed and laughed and gave me a big hug.

That evening She took us swimming again, and just as we were about to get in the water, She turned to me and and again said laughingly, “ Sabari, Yesterday you say “ Amma,Amma, Amma, Amma” throwing her arms up as if drowning.

At that moment I knew she hears my prayers, for those were the words that I had whispered within myself when about to drown. Spontaneously I took Her hands in mine, looked into Her eyes and sang to Her out of love and gratitude.

Later I realized what a great gift She had given me through this experience. Not only did I now know that She hears our prayers, it was wonderful to know that I actually called on Her when my life was threatened. For after all, what is life on earth about? One great truth is that we do not know the meaning of death. What does one have to call on when one reaches the inevitable? This is what Amma is teaching us; the call is from the heart and not the intellect.

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