save the world. Kindly give me shelter. I shall not leave your feet. You must grant me refuge." He went on imploring like this. The Mother was all along standing like a statue. After a while, she said, "Please don't be so impatient. Get up, child."
Lalit was a boy of
fifteen or
sixteen. His latent spiritual nature was beginning to unfold. He was dark-complexioned and well-built. He was full of devotion to God, and his behaviour often exhibited it. Again he began shedding tears, saying, "Kindly grant me refuge at your holy feet, Mother. Kindly say, 'Yes'. Graciously say that you have accepted me, otherwise I shall not get up."
At this moment his feet touched an earthen pot containing clarified butter. He immediately shrank in self-condemnation and said, "What a sin have I committed! Someone gave the Mother this clarified butter with great reverence and now my wretched feet have touched it. Alas! What have I done?" In this way he was lamenting when one fair-complexioned old lady who was busy working in the shrine said, "Well, son, you need not fret. What if your feet have touched that pot? Your feet are not something outside of the universe. The two legs of men are parts of
creation. The legs are a part and parcel of
the human body." We glanced at her. The calmness on her face and her simple and meaningful words deeply impressed us. Lalit was pacified to some extent, and regaining his composure, he saluted the Holy Mother, saying, "Mother, kindly bless me." "The Master will bless you"-saying this the Mother placed her hand on Lalit's head. Pacified, he went downstairs.
About this time a middle-aged man appeared at the door of
the Mother's room. He was holding the hand of
a young woman about sixteen or seventeen years old. He said, "Mother, she is my daughter. Her baby died this morning, and she is grief-stricken. I have brought her here hoping that you will be able to console her." These words made us all apprehensive.
Mother: Come here, darling.
The young woman entered the room and sat close to the Holy Mother. As she extended her hand to touch Mother's feet in respectful salutation, the Mother moved away a little and said, "Well, should she touch me? She is now in a period of
mourning." These words of the Holy Mother made the woman's face all the more pale. Feeling embarrassed, she quietly moved a little away.