Mother's Chronicles (Book 1)

14

The Golden Robe

"It wasn't easy."

But this unpleasant quality of Mathilde's was in reality a blessing in disguise. It forced Mirra to keep her experiences to herself and not breathe a word to anybody, least of all to her mother, who would have whisked her off to the nearest doctor without a moment's loss. "Nothing counted for her except what one touches and sees. But it was a divine grace," Mother acknowledged, "I had no possibility of telling her anything. I kept my experiences to myself." Thus the materialistic armour served Mirra as a protection and helped her to withstand the strange experiences that were for ever crashing down upon her. "From my babyhood, experiences came massively."

As young Mirra approached or entered her teens

Page 125

her true role in life —although she did not understand it then —began to be clearly outlined.

"That was the period," Mother said, referring to the luncheon with her first cousin, "when I used to go out [of the body] every night, and every night do the work to which I have alluded in passing in the Prayers and Meditations. When the whole house had become very quiet, every night at the same hour, I would go out of my body and have all kinds of experiences." Let us turn the pages of Mother's book, Prayers and Meditations —her journal, in reality —on the date of 22 February 1914.

"When I was a child —around the age of thirteen, and for about a year —every night, as soon as I was in bed, it seemed to me that I came out of my body and went straight up above the house, then above the city, very high. I then saw myself clad in a magnificent golden robe, longer than myself; and as I rose, that robe lengthened, spreading in a circle around me to form, as it were, an immense roof over the city. Then I would see men, women and children, the old, the sick and the unfortunate come out from all sides.

Page 126

They gathered under the outspread robe, imploring help, recounting their miseries, their sufferings, their sorrows. In response, the robe, supple and living, stretched out to them individually, and as soon as they touched it they were consoled or healed, and reentered their bodies happier and stronger than when they had come out of them. Nothing looked more beautiful to me, nothing made me more happy; and all the daytime activities seemed to me dull and colour less, without real life, compared to this night activity which, for me, was the true life."

As Mirra rose over the city, she would often "see on my left an old man, silent and still, who looked at me with a benevolent affection and encouraged me by his presence. This old man, dressed in a long garment of dark purple, was the personification —I came to know it later —of him who is called the Man of Sorrows."

Much, much later, years later in fact, Mirra would understand what her experience meant: "The impersonal, eternal divine Love. Being this Love, I feel myself living in the centre of all things upon the

Page 127

whole earth and, at the same time, it seems to me that I am immense, infinite arms stretching out and enveloping with a boundless tenderness all beings clasped, gathered up, nestled upon my breast, vaster than the universe."

A boundless love.

A love that intensifies the impulses that are swift and straight and frank. A love that strengthens. Divine Love.

Years before, Mother had related to us an ancient Chaldean legend. "Long ago, very long ago, in the arid country which is now Arabia, a divine being had incarnated upon earth to awaken there the supreme love. As one would expect, the Incarnation was persecuted by men, misunderstood, suspected, hunted down. Mortally wounded by assailants, this Being wished to die alone and quietly, so that the work might be accomplished; and, followed by them, he fled. Suddenly, in the vast denuded plains, a small bush of pomegranate sprang up. The Saviour stole under the low branches in order to give up his body in

Page 129

peace; and immediately the bush developed miraculously, grew up, widened, became deep and luxuriant, so that when the pursuers passed by they did not even suspect that the one whom they were chasing was hidden there, and they continued on their way. While drop by drop the sacred blood fell, fertilizing the soil, the bush covered itself with marvellous flowers, scarlet, enormous, clusters of petals, innumerable drops of blood. . . ."

Mother named the pomegranate flower, which blossoms even in the desert: DIVINE LOVE.

Page 130