Problem

                                                                                                October 24, 1991

   LIFE on earth is ruled by LAW.  The LAW splits into laws. They are:

birth ends in death, body needs food and sleep, the strong always prevails over the weak, man is rewarded in the measure of his being conscious, and several others too.

   Man rises in his inner consciousness and tries to move up the social ladder. Life is almost quiet for one who does not try to move up and is well-organised at his own level. All those who try to move upwards in the social status are beset with problems of different types. Those who are not organised enough or strong enough to survive in their own place are faced with problems of survival. They express as disharmony at home, disease in the body, depression in the spirit, loss of prestige, material loss, conflict etc.

   Man resorts to law to restore harmony, to medicine to cure the disease, human solicitude to counter depression, resourcefulness to restore prestige, hard work to compensate loss and mediation to resolve the conflicts. Most of them are remediable and the rest defy human efforts. Those problems that remain unsolved in all countries and in all times are classified as INSOLUBLE PROBLEMS.

   Law imposes the collective authority on individual life but cannot order an unaffectionate mother or irresponsible son to be otherwise, as they are individual attitudes. Medicine cures the disease by discovering the chemical substance that can counter the disease and by learning the process of the growth of the disease. Obviously there is a limit to this knowledge. Man is selfish and is not always solicitous of his neighbour. Resourcefulness varies in people and is not available in endless measure. Hard work can compensate many things to a great extent and mostly in the future. A few items or a few levels of some items and the past events always escape the compensatory effort of industry. Mediation is not available to resolve some of the conflicts. Therefore it is understandable that unsolved problems come to stay as insoluble ones.

   The devout resort to prayer to solve the insoluble ones as the gods can always cure what man cannot cure. Here too, several prayers are answered but some remain unanswered. As the gods are propitiated by puja, prayer, stotra, mantra etc., the relief is in the measure of the strength of these methods. And any method has its own limit. Hence the insoluble problems. Grace can wipe out any problem but it acts on its own initiation. Often it does not initiate. We also hear that 'the time has not come', 'it is karma', 'it will be cured if that condition is fulfilled' and several others. It is not so with Mother, but even among Mother's devotees 'insoluble' problems 'remain.'  Hence the puzzle.

   While man resorts to law to solve disharmony, prayer to Mother sends the pure spiritual force of HARMONY and it acts on the persons concerned creating harmony. Situations and attitudes of disharmony change into harmonious situations and attitudes of harmony, and the problem disappears. There is no limit to this power and therefore there is no problem left unsolved.

   A depressed person may be isolated and may not find enough sympathy or all the sympathy that is there may not pull him out of the morass. That becomes the dead end. Prayers and stotras are not popular enough to dissolve these depressions. Occasionally prayer by these people to the gods increases the depressions. So, in our traditional worship there is no remedy for these things. Things are different with Mother. She responds to your first call. She comes as Joy. When a depressed person calls Mother, he finds JOY emerging out of him in the first few calls. All that he has to do is to continue the call till his depression is dissolved.  A man soaked in depression inwardly and enveloped outwardly from young age took to Mother at the age of 30 and found himself involuntarily laughing on several occasions.

   Man resorts to resourcefulness to restore lost prestige. When the strength of the problem that eroded his prestige overrides his resourcefulness, it remains unsolved. Such a man turning to the gods, finds a solution if he is devout and repentant. Even that is not guaranteed, as prayer to the gods is based on individual strength which has a limit. The gods answer his prayer only when his prayer reaches them which requires often sufficient strength.

   With Mother there are two differences. She responds to faith and call, not necessarily the strength of prayer or a puja. Also She moves towards the man the moment man thinks of Her. She only wants him to turn towards Her. She does not restore his prestige by increasing his resourcefulness but She changes the circumstances in his favour. As Mother is waiting for man's call and as She solves his problem from a wider context, there is no possibility for this to fail.

   Hard work compensates loss but it cannot always undo past losses. When the devotee calls Mother She makes his work bear greater fruit, makes the environment respond to him, helps him dissolve his karma. As the environment positively responds to his hard work, his work bears the fruit of an endeavour of a higher order and the results are several-fold. As Her force neutralises karma, even the past losses are invariably made good.

   Man resorts to other men to mediate to resolve conflicts. Mother HERSELF mediates when he calls Her. Also She mediates through every force in the circumstance. That is why when She is called, all the negative circumstances turn positive. Often the person who has generated the conflict turns around and takes a helpful attitude. An applicant to a teacher's post was opposed by a trust member as he wanted his own daughter to get it. The applicant started prayer to Mother. Soon she was met by the opposing member in the bazaar who turned around, withdrew his opposition and got her the job on his own initiative.

   How is it then that several devotees have 'unsolved' problems and 'find' them 'insoluble'?  It is true that several devotees do find such a situation and it is not because they are insoluble but because they are unsolved, because they are left unsolved, or because they want it to be solved in their own way or they refuse to remove an obstacle in the way or the solution, or insist on putting such an obstacle in the way of the solution. It sounds curious or paradoxical. We meet with several life situations as described below and wonder how things are in that shape.

            -- A mother insists that her daughter marry the uneducated poor

               brother of hers as against educated, employed candidates.

            -- A brilliant boy in an affluent family, inspite of being the son

               of a college principal, refuses to complete his degree.

            -- In the 1960's we find a husband who refuses his wife's skin

                disease to be treated by blood transfusion as it is another's

                blood and he allows her to suffer the chronic disease.

            -- We do find business people supporting politicians who often

                turn around and ruin them.

            -- Good companies are ruined because proprietors refuse to

                remove corrupt managers for one reason or another inspite of

                knowing their practice.

            -- Uneducated wives of highly qualified scientists refuse to allow

                their husbands to go abroad and make them languish as pro-

                fessors while their compeers are Vice-Chancellors and seek

                wider fame.

Man can be ignorant inspite of high education when it touches his preferences and can be stubborn about it also. Man's blindness to ruinous circumstances around is proverbial. He refuses to see for the 20th time or even 50th time that one act follows another and the first is the cause of the second. Rarely people see cause behind the effect or the correspondences between two events. Let me give several occasions where similar situations are faced by the devotees too.

   A senior officer whose only means was his salary, borrowed for daily expenses 40 times his salary and refuses to understand that he could not spend more than his income! Another did better in borrowing 70 times his salary. There is no solution to these problems in human life. But with Mother when the man realises his original folly, She solves the difficulty. One of the above two did solve his problems by a changed attitude.

   Prayer to Mother brings down the purest of spiritual forces into our plans and it needs pure atmosphere to act. Physical cleanliness and vital purity are essential for Mother's force to act.

   A Ph.D. student living in unclean surroundings complained of the blessing packet not acting on his problem. His complaint vanished the moment the house and his clothes were washed!

   Vital beings are powerful and are capable of forecasting as the does. Vital beings are in many levels. They tell you what will happen today evening or they can create a world war. Their power amazes man and therefore he worships them. However great the vital beings are, they are not gods but only vital beings. They are inimical to the spiritual atmosphere and Mother's Force cannot act unfailingly in the life of those who worship these beings of whatever description they are, whether they are of the type of miracle mongering or prophesying. The presence of any vital being at home makes the human atmosphere unclean.  Devout people do not resort to these people. An educated employed lady whose life was smooth and pleasant in Mother was invited by one who indulges in these kinds of mini miracles. She went to him and problems in every facet of her life sprouted.

   If the house of a person is given to any vital being and its worship, they certainly do not allow the people to go out of their fold and initiate a series of troubles. It is the unanimous experience of devotees to return home from Darshan or a visit to Samadhi and find life full of pleasant surprises. Devotees have never failed to find a good news waiting for them at home when they return from the Ashram. The presence of the vital beings never allows them to return from the Ashram to a peaceful home. Always for them a bad event takes place soon after the visit to the Ashram. Some think, a few understand, but several rationalise their situation and explain the event away. Is it possible for them to have their prayers answered? If the prayer does not bring forth the answer where does the flaw lie? Is it reasonable for us to expect the problem to be solved when the atmosphere is unclean or the insistence on the foolish course stubborn?

   Devotion to Mother raises the income four-fold and the lady takes into her head that all the increased income should be spent on buying Ashram books and photographs. Anything is good upto a point and becomes a fad beyond it. Further it turns into bad and if you insist on turning good into a fad or bad by your folly and wonder why opportunities that came to others like you elude you, you must come to reverse your folly and shed the faddistic course. Mother's force acts through right understanding but refuses to act through overdoing at which point sincere devotion turns into insincerity.

   Attachment blinds. We refuse to see the defects of ourselves and our spouses or parents or children. Refusal to see the defects in oneself or another prevents Mother's Force from acting. For such people, problems remain unsolved by their attitude, not because they are insoluble.

   Mind's expectation or excitement can stand in the way of removing a disease. A devotee sees his prayer having a substantial effect on his long-standing disease. It is encouraging. Slowly the relief is growing. The mind wishes to see the disease wiped out the next morning on getting up. This is expectation. Mind is the source of the disease. To activate the mind means activating the disease. The expectation has the opposite effect. Next morning comes and the disease is worse. When the thought moves away from the disease to Mother, the disease relents. When the thought becomes active, it moves towards the disease and the disease increases. In a vitally vitiated atmosphere or physically unclean house, the thought tends to move towards the disease. And it is the surest way of preventing the cure.

   Such people cannot be helped until they come forward to help themselves to clean the house or remove the pictures of vital beings or change their attitude or shed their stubborn folly.

   Beyond all these territories of mind is an argument. 'If my house should be clean, Mother, you must make it clean.' If one has given himself to Mother to the extent of entrusting into Her hands even the cleaning of the house, first of all there will be no problems in his life and his house will be immaculately clean. There is a further status. However unclean his house is, Mother will not desert him for a moment because that is a status of mind that sees Mother even in dirt. To espouse that argument without reaching that inner status is to be simplistic is an argument not meant for mortals but for those who have earlier surrendered their ego totally.

   Man is expected to exert himself as long as 'he' is still there. When the 'I' is dissolved, Mother moves in to take care of your affairs. But it is man's way of not shedding his 'I' and asking Mother to enter into his life and sort out the affairs. They have to change inwardly before solving their problems.

   Physical service to Mother in any shape overrides many of the human weaknesses in substantial measure. It can be done by those outside only by selling Her books or collecting subscriptions for Her journal.