lawyers. Why do these come at all?' To make her talk out, the Brahmacharin asked her: 'Well, don't you always remember your real nature?' The Mother replied: 'Can that always be so? How then could all this work be done? But even in the midst of work, whenever I want, I can get the inspiration with a little thought and thus the play of the great Maya stands revealed.'
In the case of the Holy Mother, however, even this abstract distinction between these two aspects of her mental life will have to be based on an underlying unity in their essence in so far as both of them are the expressions of the great principle of motherhood of which her whole life is a revelation. In our review of her domestic life, we have shown how the impelling force behind even her worldly attachments was her sense of motherhood - a form of love that only gives but never thinks of any return, nay, gives even when any return takes the shape of ingratitude and persecution - and how for this reason, even her worldly love bordered on pure spirituality. In her role as a spiritual teacher, too, it is the very same principle of motherhood that is illustrated, perhaps through a medium that reveals the true quality of it, with greater directness.
According to Hindu religious ideals, the relation between the disciple and the Guru (spiritual preceptor) is the most intimate and sacred. The disciple is expected to see in the Guru a channel through which divine mercy manifests itself for his redemption and, as such, to put implicit faith in his words and obey his commands without questioning. This exalted conception of