22-August-2015 (Saturday)
Mother As I Saw Her – Swami Saradeshananda
The Mother as a Paramahamsa:
A sensational Jagaddhatri Puja at The Mother’s House – 2

After nightfall, finding the inmates of the house very much agitated, he was eager to learn the reason for it. He saw many of them standing there surrounding the Mother, each one wearing a long face. Many suggestions were being offered and discussed. The Mother was sitting quiet, thinking, her eyes down-cast. Piecing together the bits of conversation, he came to understand that they were in a fix, as they did not have the much-needed ripe bananas for the Puja. They had bought a full bunch of green bananas in the hope that they would ripen in time for the Puja. But to their utter dismay they found that not even one of them had ripened. The Puja was due early next morning and the bananas were the first things required for the various preliminary offerings, without which they could not start the Puja. Nobody in the village had bananas and there was no hope of getting them from neighbouring villages too. Everybody was gloomy. A Sadhu of Koalpara now said that it was possible to get bananas from a plantation at that place. A resident of Koalpara maintained a banana plantation, from where he sent ripe bananas to be sold in the market. This brought a ray of hope, and they decided to send a couple of men there at once. But who would go at this time of the night? It was then nine o’clock at night. To cover the distance of eight miles up and down was indeed difficult.

The newcomer was a courageous young man. He took another youth of that place as his companion and got ready to start on errand. The Mother’s face shone with happiness. Making Pranams to her and receiving her blessings, the two friends started on their journey.

[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 189 – 190]

Location: Bangalore, India