see that everything is set right. One must bear with everything, because everything is determined by actions (Karmas). Again, our present actions can counteract the effect of past actions.
Disciple: Can action ever cancel action?
Mother: Why not? If you do a good action, that will counter act your past evil action. Past sins can be counteracted by meditation, Japa and spiritual thought.
I had heard that a boy in the Mirzapur Street was possessed by a ghost. Some members of the Udbodhan Office had visited the boy yesterday. I asked the Mother, "How long does one live in the spirit body!"
Mother: All people, excepting highly evolved souls, live in the spirit body for a year. After that, food and water are offered in Gaya for the satisfaction of the departed souls and religious festivals are arranged. By these means the souls of the departed are released from their spirit body. They go to other planes of existence and experience pleasure or pain, and in course of time, are born again in human forms according to their desires. Others attain salvation from those planes. But if a person has some meritorious action to his credit in this life, he does not lose spiritual consciousness altogether in his spirit body.
Here the Mother referred to the spirit of the Vaishnava priest of the Govindaji temple in Brindavan.
Disciple: Is it possible for one to attain to a higher state if one's Sraddha ceremony is performed in Gaya?
Mother: Yes, that is true.
1
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1 In this connection I am reminded of another incident. The Holy Mother was in Banaras. I had left a day or two before for Gaya to perform the Sraddha ceremony for my dead ancestors. I had said to the Holy Mother before my departure, "Mother, please give your blessings that my ancestors may attain heaven." On the very night of the day I offered food and drink in Gaya for the gratification of my departed ancestors, Bhudev, the Mother's nephew, who had accompanied her to Banaras saw the Holy Mother in a dream, engaged in Japa, with a crowd of people around her, saying, "Please give me salvation! Please give me salvation!" The Mother sprinkled over them the holy water kept in a jar and said, "Go away, you are saved!" Then they departed in great happiness. Then another man appeared. The Mother said to him, "I cannot continue like this any longer." He begged of her a long time and at last received her grace. The next day Bhudev narrated this dream to the Holy Mother and she said in reply. "R has gone to Gaya to perform the Sraddha ceremony of his ancestors. Therefore all these people have obtained their salvation." In fact, while offering oblations for my departed ancestors with great sincerity, I had also offered food and drink for the salvation of all persons whose names I could remember at that time. I had prayed for the salvation of all of them.