This is a story that Mother Herself told us when we were playing table tennis with Her at Nanteuil house. Mother used to visit the various table tennis locations but mostly She played at Nanteuil. When we played against Mother we generally tried our best to return the ball well within Her reach and in as easy a position as possible for Her to hit it well. This required a good control on our part and was of great value in our own training, as Mother herself commented one day.

This same day, She explained that the game was invented by the Chinese and was called 'Ping Pong'. It was a very elegant game, generally played by the Mandarins. Then Mother showed us by beautiful gestures how they used to play it. First a Mandarin on one side hit the ball as we do now but in such a way as to make it easy for the Mandarin on the other side to return it. This was Ping. The receiver then made a courtly bow and returned it the same way - Pong. Then the first one bowed and returned it and so on. A very courtly game indeed and quite in character with their high culture, and entirely different from the Western concept of the game where one is determined to defeat an opponent.

The Chinese were known generally to do most things quite differently from the West. For instance, as Mother had also once explained, a family doctor was paid a monthly fee by each family on his panel but only so long as everyone in the family was well. If anyone fell ill, the payments stopped. So the doctor was always keen on keeping his patients healthy where as in our system, though it may be unkind to say so, doctors generally earn from our illness more than from our good health.

This, of course, relates to the China of ancient days. Much water has flowed under the bridge since then.

- Udar -

Once there was a great shortage of cement in the Ashram and as I was then in charge of purchases the responsibility for procuring it rested on me. So I asked our Mother to do something about it as really all our building work had come to a standstill. The suppliers of cement kept on regretting their inability to supply cement to us. The Mother said She would look into the matter. Then the cement began to come, a regular flood. All our warehouses were full and we could not use the cement fast enough to meet the inflow. So the departments concerned asked me to stop the supply. I did this without consulting the Mother. The supply stopped. It stopped completely for such a long time that there was again a shortage, worse than before. I went once more to the Mother for Her help and told Her the whole story. She was displeased at my action in stopping the supply. She said to me that when we go to the Divine for help we must be prepared to receive it in whatever measure it comes. If the supplies were large, we should have enlarged our capacity to use them. To have stopped the supply, as I did, showed a great lack of understanding of the Divine's way of working and so was quite unspiritual. - Udar-

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There is another story which illustrates a divine working in another way. It was with relation to a great and very important contest between two powerful groups. First one group asked for the Mother's blessings and help through me and this She gave in special cards which She asked me to take personally to Delhi and deliver to the persons concerned. Then, just as I was ready to leave, a message came to the Mother asking for Her blessings for the leader of the other group. The Mother was in a fix, as She Herself explained to me. She said that when anyone sincerely asks for Divine help, She cannot refuse to give it. That is the Law. But how to give Her blessings to both contending parties?

The Mother meditated for some time and prepared a blessings card for the other party also and told me to take all three cards to Delhi and added that I would be 'guided' there. I myself delivered the first two cards as I knew the people concerned personally. But to the third party, the contending leader, I could not go at once as I did not know him. 1 went to a friend who knew that party very well. He was much surprised to know of the request for the Mother's blessings as it was quite out of character. Nevertheless he telephoned the party in my presence and I listened-in to the conversation. When my friend enquired from the party if he had asked for the Mother's blessings, he denied it hotly and said, "I do not believe in all that nonsense!" evidently someone else had asked on his behalf. The Divine guidance had worked and I did not take the card to that person. Needless to say he lost he contest. For me what was important in this were two things. One, that the Mother cannot refuse Her blessings and help to anyone who prays to Her in all sincerity. The second is with regard to the way the Divine works. We look to a working only on the surface but the Divine works behind the veil and most often we cannot recognise this working till sometime after the work is done. Its way of working is its own and it does not follow our human logic. It has a logic of its own, though it may use some of our blunderings for its own working. - Udar - Once, when I was cleaning the radio in Pavitra's room, a cockroach jumped out and I was going to kill it when Pavitra said, "No, no! Do not kill it, just drive it away." I was then fairly new in the Ashram and so felt that perhaps it was not good here to kill living things - we must have Ahimsa. Later I asked the Mother about this, recounting the incident. She answered firmly, "You should have killed it. Pavitra is a sentimental person. The truth is that in creation, as it now is, there are forces of two kinds: those that are progressive in Evolution and those that oppose or obstruct the Evolution. Cockroaches and such insects that do harm belong to the latter kind. They can be destroyed without hesitation. There are other insects like bees that are helpful and they should not be wantonly killed." - Udar-

The Mother on Victory Day - 7th Oct.1954

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The Mother once said to me, "You know, Udar, all my life I have tried to take someone and work on him or her to raise the person to the skies. 1 have not yet succeeded but I will go on trying." - Udar- Durga Ouja - 5th Oct.1954

The Mother giving message to Udar

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