Why are you quiet? Come on, see, how delightful this climbing up and down is.

Look at the shrewdness of the mind. It is wandering all over the place unbidden. When it sees you, it recoils with fear and stands mutely like a great offender caught in guilt. Then at the slightest opportunity it sneaks out and flees so swiftly that it’s difficult to find it. The mind is a flying horse. How much does it race! Anyway, forget it. What’s the point in talking about the mind? If you’d but so desire, the mind would not dare budge an inch.

I have come into your refuge, please forgive my offences.

Pranat paal raghuvamsha mani karunaa sindha kharaari Gaye sharana prabhu raakhihe sab aparaadha bisaar

(O protector of the supplicants! O kaustubha gem of the Raghu clan! O Great Ocean of compassion! O slayer of Khara! Go to him for shelter and he will protect you.)

In this terrible forest of worldly existence, there’s no one who will protect me other than you. O Narayana! I am seeking refuge in your feet. O Lord, listen! I neither know how to seek refuge, nor that mode of surrender by which you may class me as an exclusive servant. I want to be your refugee. Teach me please, if you tell me how I could do that, I will not forget it even in my delirium. I’ll not lose sight of this secret in happiness and sorrow, disease and bereavement, I won’t forget it even for a moment. I am yours! I am yours! I am yours!

Why don’t you also say, ‘You are mine! You are mine! You are mine!’ You couldn’t say that right? These are just three words: You are mine and yet you could not utter them? Alright, there’s no need for you to speak. If I am indeed yours, how can you keep quiet? Speak to me. Pray speak.

What? What did you say? The thing that resides in the prana (the vital breath) … ok, let it be. I won’t speak.

Ah! You’re again talking? No, don’t play this hide and seek. Have a face-to-face conversation with me. Come, speak…

By which name are you calling me now? If it’s not a matter of speech, why don’t you stand in front of me and talk to me? Well, it may be just my mind beguiling.

You’re calling me again? Speak Ma…

‘O Mother, dear Mother! How can I explain to you? How many lakhs of times have I come and gone; how much torment have I suffered! I am returning ungratified even this time. Where did you disappear Ma? You range beyond the bindu, nada and kalatita while I remain bound within the boundaries of bindu*.

*Celestial Point – very minute of the minutest ‘drop’ of dazzling light, the nucleus of Omkar sphota, an inexhaustible source of energy.

Actually, no! Sometimes I end up reaching the great space. But where are you? When will I be able to see you? The days are passing. I feel scared, very scared.

Ma bhaih! (Fear not!)

Did you say this Ma bhaih? Don’t speak in the mind, speak out in words Ma! Speak, Ma!

Ma! Ma! Ever-blissful Mother! Keep me drowned in your nectarine touch. Drown me, Mother! Call me. Call me again. Oh, this calling is so magical, it makes my heart long for you, run towards you.

Ram, Ma - Ma. Calling you is heartening.

Call, call me day and night. Call as though I have forgotten everything.

May these revert back from Para backwards!

Sadananda Mayi Ma! (O Perpetually Blissful Mother!). Don’t let me demur anymore, give me the strength to believe in your words which embody truth.

‘No?’

Go on, laugh as much as you like! When I call you Mother, you’re bound to laugh.

‘Both are one.’

Sure, they’re one but I still find a little difference.

When I call you Ma, I feel you’re so dear to me and so close, after that when I call you Ram, I feel somewhat distant and withdrawn. Are you not the one I have been calling as Ma? Look, Ma! Both your feet are very dear to me. Will I not be fortunate enough to have a vision of these feet? Just the sight of thy feet in the photograph makes my heart dance with delight, I wonder what would be my state when I actually see them.

Ma, please touch this bindu with thy feet, just once, please do it. When will this bindu disappear? I have heard that that which is called nada is also bindu, and it is chitta (mind-stuff) as well – let me touch thy feet, let my chitta drown in them.

Alright Ma! Do you never desire to talk to me really? Speak up, Ma! Don’t you feel like it? Speak… you’ll have to speak.

“I feel like it!”

Aah! If you feel like speaking, then why do stay mum? Just once cast thy compassionate glance upon me. May it destroy my shortcomings! Come to me, hold me in your arms in embrace, make me sit in your lap and listen to you.

Look Ma! You did not come; you didn’t take me in your lap – all the same my entire body has goose bumps. Ma! Did you really touch me furtively?

Wonder what will happen when I have a direct vision?