Amal Kiran's Correspondence with The Mother

6 October 1960

Mother,

May I use the text below — or at least a part of it—for the next Mother India?

WORDS OF THE MOTHER

A practical problem comes up more and more often: should one who is preparing to do Yoga and has made it a general rule to offer You everything and depend entirely on You, accept gifts, in money or kind, coming from others? Because if he accepts, he is put under personal obligations and duties. Can a sadhak allow this? Can he say to himself: “The Divine has many ways of giving”?

What is to be done if a person begins to quarrel because one has accepted a gift in one case and refused in another? What is to be done to avoid such bitterness around one, provoked by repeated refusals?

“The Divine has many ways of giving.”

This is the correct thing. One never has any obligation to anybody, one has an obligation only to the Divine and there totally. When a gift is made without conditions one can always take it as coming from the Divine and leave it to the Divine to take care of what is needed in exchange or response.

As for ill-will, jealousy, quarrels and reproaches, one must sincerely be above all that and reply with a benevolent smile to the bitterest words; and unless one is absolutely sure of himself and his reactions, it would be better, as a general rule, to keep silent.¹⁴

6 October 1960