“Had I known of her illness before we left Karachi, I would never have come here at all. But what should I do now? I must keep my word at any cost and my heart is all eager to do so. ‘But How now?’ is the question that puzzles me.” I prayed and prayed in words such as these.

 Unbearable Anguish

  I ceased to take food, abstained from other bodily activities. Only one craze possessed me: heart-rending prayer to God. “Woe to this day! I cannot stand by the promise I have given to Mother! Not that my desire to be with her is half-hearted. No. It is the overpowering circumstance that has come my way. Wilt thou not help me?” I moaned.

 The agony of this possible perfidy was so intense that I felt like atoning for my sin by following the example of the Brahman who had cut off his head at the alter of Lord Shiva.

 “Abide with Me” 

Though my mind was suffering tortures, no voice from within urged me to commit suicide. Instead, I went on sending plaintive appeals to God. “O, my God! What a terrible situation this! I cannot leave the sisters and go there. And yet my promise has go to be kept. O, Lord! O, Help of the helpless! Abide with me. Do Thou come to my rescue. Do Thou make me faithful to my word. Mother had asked for one single thing: my presence by her bedside in her last hours. She, poor soul, wanted nothing more. And what more, besides this presence, had I to give her? I am so hemmed in by my position today that I cannot satisfy even this her last and simplest wish! Thou alone can devise means to make me faithful to my word.” 

Undeserved Grace

 “My mother is sure to be pining for my presence there. I have no doubt that she has the faith that her ‘Chunio’ is sure to come to her. O Lord! Will she, in her last breath, painfully find her implicit faith in me illusory? This is indeed a terrible moment. Nobody but Thou – Thy grace – can manage to make me stand by my pledge. My dear Lord! O Saviour of the forlorn! I have no claim over Thee. My love and devotion for Thee have not been deep enough to give me the right to ask for Thy grace. Compared to the saints and sages devoted to Thee, I am nothing, only a crawling worm. What right have I to ask for Thy help? Total surrender to Thee is the only remedy left for me, Thy humblest creature, in this crisis of my life. O, Lord! O, Father! Thou alone art the author of everything that happens in the world. Shackled as I am by this chain (that keeps me in Banaras) how can I fly to Nadiad? My whole heart is with my mother at present. I am fully convinced of this fact by my mental identity with her. But the question is how to carry this gross material form, this body, there? My heart’s resolve, yearns for my presence there. What a volcanic longing I have for my physical appearance before her in Nadiad!”

 “Concretize My Bhaavana”

 “I have definitely had experiences of bhaavana (intense feeling) taking actual shape and becoming visible to the eye. It is, therefore, my prayer from the deepest depth of my heart to make my bhaavana tangible and let Mother see my physical form. My desire for that outcome is very earnest.

  “During my sadhana period, I have never prayed for the satisfaction of my earthly desire. Whenever I prayed, I did so for some spiritual gain. By Thy grace, I had made Herculean efforts to remove all those difficulties, obstacles, and hindrances that stopped my spiritual progress. Only after making very strenuous efforts did I often pray to Thee to free me from those impediments. And, my dear Lord! Thou hast invariably listened to those prayers and have come to my rescue. It is impossible for me to forget my deep obligation to Thee for Thy help on those occasions.

  “I am today in a sad predicament. Nobody else but Thou can bring me out of it. By Thy grace, I am very well aware of the power of an iron resolve. But in fact, Thou alone art that power of strong will. In Thee is everything contained. Only one thing can save me in this my sorry plight – Thy rush to my aid. Thou alone can satisfy my tremendous desire to keep my promise and make my physical form appear before my mother’s eyes. O Lord! My dear God! Helper of the helpless! Shower Thy grace and make me happy by granting my earnest wish.”

 For Mother’s Sake Alone

 “It is not for my personal satisfaction that I pray to Thee. My objective is to please Mother and let her say, ‘Chunio has come here after all. He did keep his promise.’ That is all I want. All I pray for is to let her die happily at the sight of her dear Chunio by her bedside.”

 My desire to be there was so painful that it was something like the gopis’ (milk-maids’) intense pining for the sight of their beloved Lord Shree Krishna. With such unbearable earnestness, I continued to send my wailing appeals to God. My prayers were saturated with the deepest pain and the deepest love for God. And I repeated them incessantly.

 Cognizance of Mother’s Death

 This longing continued in my heart and with all my heart. I had no one else to turn to for help except God. There was no one nearby who had the spiritual awakening and fellowship to show any sympathy toward me for my sore distress. Nor had I any need for support from anybody. My resort, my strength, my hope lay only in my Lord, the Almighty, with his innumerable eyes and hands.

 About three days passed in interminable anguish and prayer. Then in the midst of my  prayers, quite suddenly, the electric bulb in the room went off. Intuitively, just that very moment, it struck me that mother had died exactly when the light went out. The knowledge did not bring tears to my eyes. All my heart was busy with prayers to God. In this way, by God’s grace, I knew of my mother’s death before getting any news from Nadiad.