[I am sending these excerpts from Mother’s Talks on this Christmas Day to celebrate the day Mother took incarnation in a human body. Indeed, life would not be imaginable without her coming and living the life she did for all of us. This excerpt is from a talk Mother gave in 1978 in which she talks about Sri Anamali, a great jnani saint, sending Mother both Christmas and Birthday cards, and the tremendous lesson she taught us about free will. It is also displays her humor! Happy Birthday Mother.]
Let us do some thinking before we try to order other people’s lives around. Let us first order our own, clean our own houses out. Sweep our own doorsteps. And stop telling the other fellow what to do before you know how to run and regulate your own lives. It’s important. It’s very, very important.
I would like to see each one who is here start out this moment in God and do a thorough shampoo job on their minds, on their thoughts. Clean house! Get rid of all of the worries, of the troubles, of the resentments, the hatreds, the things that you’ve got against everything and against everybody and against life! Life is what you make it! You can make it wonderful and beautiful and successful or you can let it drag you down to the depths. It is up to you! You have your own free will. And you must exercise that.
I’ve told you many times but I’ll repeat it again. I had not only a Christmas card but a birthday card from this master whom I told you about. Ten years ago this happened when he was talking to me about the complete oneness of God. There was no duality in this world as far as he was concerned. He’s a jivan mukta or a liberated soul, and he told me about his experience. He said that he was praying night and day for samadhi, samadhi, samadhi. Finally one day as he sat before Swami Ramdas, the Kundalini force at the base of his spine started going up and it flooded his whole being. It just didn’t go up the spine but it just went all the way over his whole body and exploded up here in an explosion that he said was absolutely indescribable. He said he was in samadhi and in samadhi. Then he kept praying to God, “God, take me out of samadhi! Take me out of samadhi!” [laughter]
But, to go back to this individual will, he then made a statement (having said that there was only God) that man thought that he had free will but in fact he did not. He was the creature of whatever was predicted for him. And I disagreed with him violently. I told him that I did have free will and I exercised it. I could choose to do this or that in every event, every moment of my life. “Oh, no, no, no.”
Well, we argued back and forth and neither one of us would give because we’re very strong, stubborn people, both of us. Finally, I closed my eyes and I said, God, I know I’m right. You must tell me how to convince him. So all of a sudden the answer came. I opened my eyes and looked at him and fluttered my eyelids a little bit, you know. “Swamiji, may I ask you a question, please?” “Oh, yes, yes,” he said. I said, “You say that there’s only God in this whole universe. There’s no duality. Is that right?” “Yes. I asked him if God had free will. He said, “Yes, of course, He has free will.” So, then I said to him, “If there is only God in this world and I am He, do I not also have free will?” He looked at me and all of his disciples sitting around the floor started snickering and grinning. Some of them were there this last time when I was just there and they remembered, and they were still grinning. [laughter] And he said, “The only trouble with her is that she thinks too fast for me in English!” [laughter] Well, this is true; he does have trouble with English but, nevertheless, the principal is the same. But I love him very much and I have very great respect for him.
He has tremendous power. As I say, he’s a very stubborn man but then it takes one to know one. [laughter] So every time we meet the sparks fly but we have developed a tremendous relationship now and we have great respect for each other and great love for each other. And that, after all, is the purpose of life: to find that which is beyond the surface and see God within each one and you will find God in their hearts, their minds, their souls. Having found that you will find your ability to express these things and experience them expand within your own consciousness, within your own being. It’s the most tremendous experience in your life.
As I’ve told you many times before, to realize your oneness with God inside is not to quit living but to start living, really to start living for the first time. Life is eternal; it is Ever‑New, Ever‑Conscious, Ever‑Existing Bliss. And the Ever‑New part is the thing which keeps it interesting, which keeps it going. I don’t care if you have absolute oneness with God, still you are so vast. He is so vast. And you are so vast in your oneness with Him that you keep exploring the facets of your own being forever and forever and forever because He’s infinite! He’s eternal! And it never stops, not until the last breath you draw in this incarnation or any other one because God is life, all of it! And life is God.
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[This is an excerpt from a talk Mother gave for Christmas in the year 1980. It gives you a hint of the humility of Mother, and when given a compliment, she always managed to turn it back onto God. The reference made to a “concert” was an evening event to celebrate Mother through gifts of music, song, dramas and humor performed by devotees.]I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and a wonderful and happy and prosperous New Year. Keep the Christ in your hearts, in your consciousness, in every act, in every deed, in every thought that you have. Think only of him and serve him and he will come to you in all of his graciousness, his radiance, and his light and bless you forevermore.
Now, we are all invited to go downstairs and partake of the food of Christmas in the human sense.
[Dale Tonkins] Mother, we have a little presentation that we would like to make to you. You know, last night after the concert you thanked all of us for what we’d given to you, and I couldn’t help but think, and I say this for all of us, that the thanks is to you for what you are in God and for what you’ve attained in God, for the love that you give to us. You know, Mother loves us enough to scold us when we need it even, whatever it takes to help us realize our talents and to find God within. We thank you, Mother, from the bottom of our hearts and from the depths of our souls.Some of you may not know that Mother’s birthday is on Christmas Day, so we have two cards here. This is for a Happy Birthday . . .
[Mother reads card] “A loving birthday greeting for the dearest of all mothers to wish you all the happiness you’re always giving others, to thank you for the things you’ve done in such a thoughtful way, and then remind you once again how much you’re loved each day. Have a wonderful birthday.” There are many, many names and all this money [giggles] that I can use for God’s work.Let me say that I appreciate very much your thanks, but I give it all to God, because without Him I am nothing. He makes me live and breathe, walk, sleep, eat, everything. I could not do one thing if it were not for Him, and I serve Him in each one of you with all my heart, my mind, and my soul. And any credit for anything that I do goes to Him alone, because without Him I am nothing. He makes all things possible for each and every single one of us, as I have said. I am the littlest one on the Christmas tree of life, I feel. That I can serve God in each of you is my greatest pleasure and my greatest privilege because I, too, am serving Christ in you each moment. I’m fortunate to have my birthday on Christ’s birthday.
[We were so fortunate for Mother coming to us in human form and sharing with us her incredible incarnation. May you and your family be blessed on this holy day and all the days of the year. With all love and blessings, Yogacharya David.]