Disciple: Do you then actually see it?
Mother: Yes. In the case of some offerings, he actually eats and in other cases he merely looks at them. Take your own case. You don't like to eat all things at all times. Nor do you relish the food offered by anyone and everyone. It is like that. One's love of God depends entirely upon one's inner feeling. Love of God is the essential thing.
Disciple: How does one get love of God? Even if one's own son be brought up by someone else, he does not recognize his own mother as his mother.
Mother: Yes, that is true. The grace of God is the thing that is needed. One should be fit to deserve the grace of God.
Disciple: How can one speak of deserving grace, or not deserving it? Grace is the same for all.
Mother: One must pray sitting on the bank of the river. He will be taken across in proper time.
Disciple: Everything happens when the proper time comes. Then where does God's grace come in?
Mother: Must you not sit with the fishing rod in your hand, if you want to catch the fish?
Disciple: If God be our 'own', why then should one sit and wait?
Mother: That is true. It may happen even out of season. Don't you see now-a-days how people get fruits like mango and jack out of season? How many mangoes grow nowadays in the month of Bhadra?
Disciple: Is it all, that He sends us away by giving us what we deserve? Or, can one get Him as one's very own? Is God my very 'own'?
Mother: Yes, God is one's very 'own'. It is the eternal relationship. He is everyone's 'own'. One realizes Him in proportion to the intensity of one's feeling for Him.
Disciple: Intense feeling is like a dream. A man dreams what he thinks.
Mother: Yes, it is a dream. The whole world is a dream; even this (the waking state) is a dream.
Disciple: No, this is not a dream, for then it would have disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. This state exists for many, many births.
Mother: Let it be so; still it is nothing but dream. What you