This Monk From India - The Divine Life Society

DEATH UNFOLDS ITS MYSTERIES
Six months after my son’s death, my mother passed away. She had said she did not want to
live any longer, her heart was broken. On the night of her death, in the Bhajan Hall of the Ashram
during Satsang, I smelt a perfume that evoked memories in me. I searched in my mind, it was
something so sweet, but I could not remember until I heard, “Do you remember the honeysuckle”
and I felt my mother’s presence. Then I remembered. Such a long, long ago memory. I was a very
small child, we were walking on a country road. My mother was holding me by the hand when
suddenly she stopped, and plucking some honeysuckle, she smelt it and gave it to me to smell. Then
she said, “It is my favourite perfume. Men are so foolish to try to imitate the perfumes of Nature.
Only God can create such perfection, and every time I smell honeysuckle I feel Him near”—and for
the first time I was struck by her great beauty and the beauty of her smile.
That was how I knew she had passed away, even before I got the letter and the telegram
telling me about it. She was peaceful, happy. She understood my new way of life at last and she was
even thanking me for it, for she seemed to realise that my presence here in the Ashram was helping
her. When I did the temple ceremony for her, she was there and so happy that a great peace came
over me.
Swamiji told me, “She had a very big heart.”
It was so true. In spite of her extreme sufferings, she never complained, and she was so
selfless that I feel ashamed when I think of my behaviour with her. I wonder at her love; I wonder at
God’s mercy on me.
But God did not stop there. I had said, “everything....”.
My daughter put me out of her life totally, and all my other relatives and friends turned their
backs on me. They could not understand me; they blamed me for the death of my son also. I
understood them so well, but what could I say Then a newspaperman wrote such strange made-up
things about me and he ended his article by saying, “Evidently the poor woman is mad”.
But Swamiji said, “Some people are sometimes so narrow-minded. They do not like to see
Yoga spreading so much. But we must remember that the general tendency is not like that, a unity is
coming.” And I prayed that people might soon learn to know that Yoga was not a religion, that it
was a science of all religions. And as Swamiji says, “All religions are, as it were, the flowers that
make the beautiful bouquet we offer to the Lord...God delights in revealing Himself as Christ, as
Buddha, as. Krishna...”
They specially blamed me for having left my children. They could not understand. Neither
could I really until one day I read the story of St. Jeanne. She was married to the prince of a small
kingdom. The young couple was radiantly happy and everyone rejoiced. After a while it seemed to
be proved that the young couple could not have children. The parents of the prince did everything in
their power to separate their son from his wife and marry him to another woman who could give a
heir to the throne. They threatened the young prince that they would take the kingdom away from
him, but he preferred even that to being separated from the woman he loved. The princess, his wife
risked her life many a time to have a child. This lasted for years, when one day she at last gave birth
to a son. The little boy had all qualities, health, beauty, intelligence, and he was so extraordinarily
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