Mother: Yes, he has understood it. To cast the image means to meditate and contemplate on the Master, to think of the various incidents of his life. By meditating on him, one gets all the spiritual moods. He used to say, "One who remembers me never suffers from want of food or from other physical privations."
Maku: Did he himself say this?
Mother: Yes, these are the very words from his mouth. By remembering him one gets rid of all sufferings. Don't you see that all his devotees are happy? Elsewhere you will not find devotees like those of the Master. Here, in Banaras, I see so many holy men; but can you point out one who is like his devotees?
Disciple: There is a reason for that, Mother. About him we feel as if the market has only just come to a close. All the signs of the market are there. People are still moving about. The devotees and the intimate disciples of the Master are still alive. We feel that the Master, as it were, is very near us. He has not gone away to any great distance. We shall get the response if we but call on him.
Mother: Yes, many people do get it.
Disciple: Krishna, Rama and others seem to belong to a bygone age. They do not seem near enough to respond to our prayer.
Mother: Yes, that is true.
Referring to the Cossipore Garden, I said, "It is a sacred place and now a European gentleman lives there."
Mother: At the Cossipore Garden the Master spent the last days of his life. The place is associated with so much meditation, Samadhi and the practice of austerities. It is the place where the Master entered into Mahasamadhi. It is a place permeated with intense spiritual vibration. One realizes God-consciousness by meditating there. The place may be acquired if the Master commands its owner through dream to hand it over to the Belur Math.
One day at Cossipore, Niranjan (Swami Niranjanananda) and others planned to drink the juice of a date palm. To my astonishment, I saw the Master too going behind them. When I asked him about this the next day, he said, "Oh! It is all your imagination! Your brain must have been heated by too much cooking!".
1
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1 A more detailed version of this incident was related by the Mother to the mother of Nirad Maharaj:- The Master was then completely bed-ridden at Cossipore. Swamiji and other intimate devotees were serving him to the best of their ability. One evening they planned to drink juice by tapping a date palm which was in one corner of the Cossipore garden. The Master was told nothing of this plan. In the evening, all of them proceeded towards the tree. The Mother was staying then in the same building. She suddenly noticed the Master darting down like an arrow. Startled at this, she wondered, "Is it possible? How can one, who has to be helped even to change sides on his bed, rush down like that?" And yet, she had seen it happen actually before her eyes! She went to the Master's room and found his bed empty. In a bewildered state of mind, she searched for him everywhere. Not finding him, she returned to her room in. extreme confusion and apprehension in her mind. A little later, she saw him again returning to his room as swiftly as he had left it. Later when the Mother asked him about this, he said, "Oh! Did you notice it?" He then continued, "They are all youngsters. They were proceeding merrily to drink the juice of the date palm in the garden. I saw a black cobra at the foot of the tree there which was so ferocious that it would have bitten them all. The boys did not know it. So I went by a different route and drove it away after warning, 'Never come here again'. The Mother was dumbfounded on hearing this. The Master had asked her not to divulge this to anyone then.