June 08, 2015 Monday: Mother As I Saw Her (Being Reminiscences of Holy Mother Sarada Devi)
08-June-2015 (Monday)
Mother As I Saw Her – Swami Saradeshananda
Love as the sustaining Principle in Life – 2
Long ago, one day I had gone to the house of a friend of mine, to meet him after a long time. The friend was a doctor, about forty years of age, having a good practice and reputation as a good physician in those parts. After two sons, he was blessed with a daughter who was then a year-and-a-half old. From his early boyhood the friend was very particular about the neatness of his dress. If he went to a place and found the seat not neat enough, he would first dust it clean and then sit, or else finish his work standing. Nobody had ever seen him dressed except spick and span. Seeing me there, the friend came running in great joy, and we started exchanging greetings and pleasantries, when this little daughter of his, the apple of his eye, toddled over there and raised up her arms lisping ‘Papa’. At this he bent down at once, raised her up in his arms and kissed her profusely in the exuberance of his love for her, remarking plaintively, “For her sake I have had to leave off everything – even my fastidiousness about dress. She would never accept a ‘No’. The moment her eyes fall on me, I must at once take her up in my arms. When I come back from my visits, I am not allowed to change my dress. She may be playing in the dust, but when she sees me, she will at once come running and I have to take her up in my arms then and there. Otherwise she will bring the house down with her cries. I had kept myself away from my sons. They could not get on to my lap. But I could not save myself from her. Just see now – she had been rolling on the ground, had so much dust on her, but the moment she saw me standing here, she came running.”
[Mother As I Saw Her (Being Reminiscences of Holy Mother Sarada Devi) – Swami Saradeshananda. Translated by Prof. J. N. Dey. Sri Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore Madras-600004: p 148]
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