The Mother
with Letters on the Mother

Work for the Mother and Kartavyaṁ Karma

X asked me if for us in the Asram whatever is sanctioned by the Mother can be accepted unhesitatingly as our kartavyaṁ karma. I replied, "Yes, if the sanction is asked for in the right spirit." He said, "What do we know of the right or wrong spirit? If the Mother's sanction is there, is it not enough?" I replied in the affirmative, but not with full conviction. Something was lurking in my mind suggesting that the Mother sometimes does sanction an act which may not be according to her will but for which a sadhak may have a strong desire.

If the sadhak has a strong insistence or a strong desire, the Mother may say "Yes" or "Do as you wish" or give her sanction to the thing requested or demanded. That does not make it a kartavyaṁ karma, but simply a thing which the sadhak can do. Again if a thing is indifferent or unobjectionable and the Mother is asked by somebody if he can do it, that does not exalt it into a kartavyaṁ karma.

31 July 1937

Page 416

So far I had the belief that all work sanctioned by the Mother was her work and work done for her is our kartavyaṁ karma. Is this not so? If a person gives up all duties to his family, country and society and sincerely does work only for the Divine, as an offering to the Mother, is he not doing the Mother's work and is it not his kartavyaṁ karma? Outside it may be difficult to decide this, but here, under the living Presence of the Mother, is this not an assured fact? If not, then what is really meant by kartavyaṁ karma?

I was asked [in the preceding letter] whether everything done that had the Mother's permission was not a kartavyaṁ karma. People ask for permission to a host of things dictated by various reasons—it does not follow that the Mother's permission to all these things are her dictates. What work is given by the Mother is her work—also whatever work is done with sincerity as an offering to the Mother is her work also—that goes without saying. But Karma covers all kinds of actions and not work only.

31 July 1937