presented them to her, I said, "I hear that you distribute presented clothes to others, Mother. But I shall be greatly delighted if you will kindly use these clothes yourself." When the Mother heard this, she said nothing, but smiled a little. When I went to see her the next day, she said, "Look, my son, I have put on the cloth you had brought."
On my humble supplication the Holy Mother gave me one of her old Saris. While handing it over to me, she said, "It is quite unclean. Please wash it." I said: "No, Mother, I want to preserve it exactly in the condition in which you have presented it to me. I don't want to send it to a laundry." "Well, as you please," replied the Mother.
One day, Devendra and I presented ourselves before the Mother while she was taking her food. The Mother asked, "Would you like to have Prasada?" Both of us extended our hands to receive it. After she had partaken of a small quantity of the food, the Mother gave a good amount of it to each of us. Lest it should fall from our hands, she pressed it placing it on our palms. The Mother belonged to an orthodox Brahmin family and I to a Kayastha. With an utter disregard of the caste rules she touched my hand and began taking her food. Indeed, she looked upon us as her own children.
Whenever I went to see the Holy Mother, I brought fruits or some other articles I could procure. I had heard that the Mother could not offer to Sri Ramakrishna things brought by anybody and everybody, and so I sometimes felt an apprehension whether the Mother would accept our presents because of our not being very pure souls. But I used to feel reassured on the Mother telling, "My son, I presented to the Master the article you had brought. It was quite good, very sweet. I too have partaken of it."
One day I asked her, "Mother, does not the practice of repeating God's name gradually reduce the accumulated effects of a man's past actions?" "Everyone must experience the consequence of his past actions," the Mother replied. "Nevertheless, the remembrance of God's name helps one this much-instead of losing a leg one may suffer merely from a thorn entering one's foot."
I said, "Mother, I can hardly perform spiritual practices, and I don't think I shall ever be able to." The Mother assured me