wife of Prasanna Kumar. It was summer and the female cook slept with the mosquito net fixed in front of the door of the Mother's old house. Now, she dreamt that the Mother approached her after her bath carrying a flower basket in one hand and a water pot in the other. "Get up, get up from here," she said, rebuking her for lying across the door. When the female cook finished recounting her dream, the Mother smiled and said, "Listen, my dear, who knows what she is talking about?"
One day in the course of a conversation I said, "Mother, nothing worthwhile can be achieved in worldly life." In reply she said, "Son, the world is a great mire. If one gets into it, he finds it difficult to get free. Even Brahma and Vishnu gasp in it, what to speak of man! Repeat His name. If you repeat His name, He will take you beyond worldliness. Son, can anyone attain liberation unless He helps? Have deep faith in Him. Know the Master to be your refuge, just as parents are to children in this world."
When one day the topic of faith in God was raised, the Mother observed, "Son, does one acquire faith by mere study of books? Too much study creates confusion. Suppose I write to you a letter asking you to bring such and such things for me. How long would you need this letter? As long as you don't know what it says. As soon as you have known the contents of the letter, what would be the need of it any longer? Then what is required of you is to bring me those things. Without doing so, what would be the good of reading the letter day and night?"
One day I told the Mother passionately, "Mother, I come to you so frequently, and I have received your grace, too. But then, why haven't I achieved anything? I feel that I am as I was before."
In reply the Mother said, "My son, suppose you are asleep on a cot and somebody removes you along with the cot to another place. Will you realize immediately on waking that you have been transferred to a new place? Not at all. Only when the drowsiness clears away completely will you realize that you have come to a new place."
Once I had left home to attend a festival at Belur Math, but
en route I had got off at Midnapore to attend to some minor work. As I could not catch the evening train, I went back to Calcutta the next day. On reaching Calcutta in the evening, I went to see the Holy Mother. When she saw me, the Mother asked, "Didn't you