think of taking my sister?" The Holy Mother was much amused. Brother Rajen replied, "We have no power to take her. But we had promised to bring the palanquin today at this time, and so we have come." The Holy Mother on hearing this laughed and said, "You have kept your promise. I too should keep mine. I alone shall come in the palanquin. The others will follow afterwards." Thereupon we came forward, telling, "No, Mother, how can it be? In the rain, nobody is able to step out of their houses. Should we take you drenched in the rain and make you fall ill?" Uncle Kali and the Holy Mother laughed and laughed. Taking the empty palanquin we returned to our Ashrama.
But the Holy Mother fell ill immediately after, and so she could come to Koalpara only after a few months. One morning at about eleven when I went to Jagadamba Ashrama, all the ladies were in great excitement. Kedar Babu's mother said in a hushed voice, "She (the Mother) is in ecstasy. Saying 'Thakur' (the Master), she has just lost consciousness." The ladies attended on her, sprinkling water on her head and eyes. A little later when she recovered, Nalini-Didi asked, "Oh, aunt, what happened?" The Holy Mother replied, "What happened? It is nothing. I was trying to thread the needle and got dizzy." Hearing these words, no one spoke any more on the topic.
Later, during her last illness, the Holy Mother herself told me fully about this incident of ecstasy. That day it was about half past one or may be two. Her fever was rising. I, as usual, sat by her bed and was fanning her and massaging her forehead gently with a wet hand. Patting me affectionately, she looked at my face and said, "If I pass away, all of you will feel very miserable. I can understand that." In gentle reproach I said, "Why do you talk like that, Mother? When the medicine is not showing any effect, why don't you speak to the Master about your body? Everything will get right, if you do that." The Holy Mother smiled a little and said, "At Koalpara I used to get such high fever that I lay unconscious in my bed frequently. Yet when I became conscious and thought of the Master for the sake of my body, immediately I could have his vision. In a very weak state, I was one day sitting in the verandah. Nalini and others were perhaps sewing. There was the burning heat of the sun all around. Suddenly I saw that the Master entered through the main door, sat in the verandah and then stretched himself down