The intention in the Heart

It was that lovely time near the end of darshan, late at night (early the next morning), when people have moved near the front of the hall and Mother is chatting with people close around her chair. The subject was "acharas"-those traditional dos and don'ts for our spiritual practice. What are the rules? How should we do things?

A woman sitting near Mother raised a question to Amma about the correct way of displaying photos of Mother. It seems that in her bathroom at home, she had a picture of Amma, and a friend had scolded: "How can you keep a picture of Amma in the same room where people use the toilet? It's disrespectful!"

So the woman asked Amma.

Amma's answer was simple: "Daughter, God is Omnipresent. When God resides in everyone and everything, then there is no place where God is not. So then how could it be wrong to place Mother's photo wherever we want to be reminded of Mother?"

Another devotee wanted to know about pujas and homas and chanting God's names: "It is said that one should chant the Sahasranama Archana (Holy names for the Mother aspect for the Divine in the Vedic texts) only in the morning and the Sahasranama Stotra ( Holy names set in the form of a continuous string of names) only in the evening. Is this true, Mother?"

Again Mother's reply was absolutely simple: "Son, will a child call its mother "Ma" only in the mornings, and "Amma" only at night? And won't a baby, when it is hungry, simply cry for milk? A mother won't put her baby on a schedule, will she?"

In her inimitable way, Mother, eyes twinkling, took that back: "Perhaps in these days when women have to go to the office, they must feed their babies on schedule." People nodded in rueful agreement. And Amma completed her thought: "But that isn't Devi's way.

"Prayer in whatever form in whatever place at whatever time is of course always not only permissible (in fact, as Mother mentioned, the bathroom can be a good, quiet place to meditate, undisturbed, undistracted….) but encouraged. There might be some small restrictions-like: for the first hour and a half after eating, one should not meditate on the point between your eyebrows. Such limitations are for our benefit: If you do, you might get nauseated. These rules are not to propitiate or appease some demanding deity. It is however OK to think about God or pray during this time. But in fact, a spiritual aspirant's every thought and deed will be a worship and offering, without regard to time and place.

Of course, it is good to have a schedule and to observe the acharas; a spiritual discipline helps us not forget to do our practice. But these rules are for our benefit, not God's.

What matters most, Amma always says, is the intention in the heart.