Month: February 2015

Soon after, the Founder ( Saint Shri Mai Swarupa Mai Markand ) was deputed to go Belgaum, Dharwar etc., for official duties.In the very train, Mother was worshipped at Belgaum by a large number of ladies, with garlands, sweet offerings and Arati. ” Prasad ”  was carried away by people right up to Madras ( Chennai ). The Founder was entirely joyful. One has never heard of an instance of a Divine worship on a railway station in the train by the varied ( unknown-to-each-other ) train travelers, including especially ladies.

At Belgaum the Founder was taken to a Ganpathi-devotee-Sanyasin whose predictions  were reported to be wonderfully correct. The Founder had his turn and the Sanyasin told him , ”  Believe my words if you start within one month from now, a religious institution “.

On return to Poona ( Pune ), he was pressed by all that had seen Mother’s miracle of the sisters’ social, to start an institution for universal prayers and lectures on different religions and spreading Mother’s conception. In less than a month from the meeting with the Mahatma of Belgaum, a Mother’s Lodge was started on 27-3-1933. Meetings were held every Sunday with printed handbills distributed and mention in the local papers. Lectures were mainly about Devotion, Love, Service and Surrender as emphasised in different religions. The Founder dealt with Harijans by various lectures and Mother’s worship in the mission.

A few experiences may be narrated to show Mother does help Her devotees-in-distress most miraculously.

A Parsi Lady (Rev. Sister Mithibhai) who served as a chairwoman in sisters’ social had one night a trouble. Her brother (Rev. Brother Jahangir) asked her for Rs. 500/ as he was in difficulty. It was Friday night. She said she would paid off his bills but would not give cash because he was sure  to loose that in the race-course. The brother got wrathful and ran shouting she may read in the papers the next day the result of her refusal. The lady was terrified. How could she run after him ? In her despair she shouted for the Founder, ” Oh my brother, Oh my Mother, who can save me ? Who would bring my brother back ?” She decided to go the Founder, when, in the bungalow itself, she saw Mother who told her , “ My son is just now having a nap after a long exhaustion. Don’t trouble him. I will bring your brother back in an hour and a half. ” The brother who had gone to Bund Garden with a determination not to return home, returned. All of them motored to the Founder and joined in Friday prayers. They narrated experience to their friends and that added a lot of popularity of Mai-ism.

One of the Mother’s devotee’s ( Rev. Bro. L.S. Prasad ) brother (Rev. Brother Sankarlal) was in some great prosecution difficulty though he was innocent. He was praying as initiated. Once he was so much unnerved that he decided to run down to Poona (Pune) to be blessed. He had a dream in which there was a room in which the Founder(whom he had not seen) was sleeping and Mother was patrolling and guarding the Founder. He entered the room. She asked him, ” why are you here ?” He said,” I want the Founder as I am in great difficulty “. Said She,” Don’t disturb my son,. He is fast asleep after a bitter weeping for me. You want acquittal, is it not ? Well, I promise you; you now walk off. Let him sleep.”

The man wrote about the dream to the Founder and asked his meaning and whether he should come down to Poona for blessings . The Founder asked him details of the room, direction, things lying, the posture of the Founder etc. as he saw in the dream. Details came forth. The Founder had three pillows, he had a blanket which was brown with black squares. He was sleeping with Mai’s picture by his side. These and other details equally tallied. The Founder said,” You need not come down to Poona, but pray, pray and pray “. He was later acquitted.

There was plague in Poona. People left the city. The Founder lived on Toddiwala road. One day a lady came and told and told him that Mother had appeared in the dream and said ,” Those who want to save their families should attend my Friday Prayers.” The Founder told her,” I have very small space here . Your own desire has materialised in the dream.” With all reverence, she was a bit wrathful. She spoke words which showed she was severely distressed. ” Do you think, Mai, that we are not fit  and Mother will not talk to us in the dream and that you are alone  have all the monopoly ? However small we may be  for Her Grace, there is no question of worthiness; I tell you Mother is actually living in your house. If you like you may see test. She is going out at 5 a.m. and moves in the garden and returns within few minutes. “

The Founder gave the substance of this talk to his cook and his servant and asked them to keep watch and shout for him if they saw Mother. At about five next morning both of them heard a sound near the door as if some one was unloosening the chain and they saw the door opened and closed quite speedily and the chain swinging and hanging vertically. They ran out , looked all round but could see none. They reported to the Founder. The Founder used a lock, kept the key with him. The next night, the cook and the servant shouted. The lock was opened and there was the sound of the doors striking freely as if they were broken open most angrily. The Founder ran up, saw the doors wide open and the lock opened, hanging loose one side and the chain on the other. He ran in the garden and saw Her just before disappearing. He danced like a mad man with joy and composed a poem which is sometimes sung in Mother’s Lodge meetings.  ” Bagan me fool chunan jaye meri Maiya : in the garden, flowers to pluck, goes my Mother.” Orders were issued not to close the doors by night or to open them at 4 a.m.. The predicting woman was obeyed. Friday prayers began in a spacious terrace and there was no case of a plague attack in the vast number of families that attended.

However the most wonderful and interesting experience of the Founder was this. One young man who had lost his equilibrium due to his wife’s death was in the spiritual service of the Founder, after he was restored to normality. One night he made a very strange statement. He said,” Mother just passed in front our door in a royal splendid car and She told me, You come over with your Kakaji (Founder) to the Globe Cinema Theater (in Poona-Pune). I am going there. Bring him without fail. He thinks a religious preacher loses all his austerity and Punya by seeing the Cinema. He needs a relief now. Don’t fail.” The Founder thought the young man’s head had again turned. He thought all his labours of recovery on him were lost. He tried to make that man forget but the latter would not leave him.Both went to Globe Cinema. The picture was ‘Maya Machendra”. The other man had absolutely no peace of mind. He would go out of the theater and come in every five minutes till finally he came shouting : ” Mother came in just now in the very same car. Few minutes later, the man shouted,” See, See , See there, She is sitting just in that balcony all alone.” The Founder was more than stupefied as he saw Mother there  all alone in gem-becked easy chair. Both were steadily gazing at Her. After 4 to 5 minutes, they saw Mother getting up most hurriedly. Said the other man, “Kakaji, Mother is going away ” and rushed out. The Founder also ran after him. They saw Mother getting into the car with a lightning speed and the flew off.

There will be no end to narration of all the Founder’s experiences.

To those that have some mystic knowledge of occult religious nature, it is known fact that visions and dreams are powerful avenues of divine communications.Deities and dead or distant Guru carry their work through dreams, regarding the interpretations of which the wisest are often at their wits’ end.

Dreams themselves are often untrue, but sometime true, sometimes a picture of own desires, imaginations and ambitions, and sometimes actually by way of a command, message or guidance, or even initiation by the higher souls. There is no seal of certainty about its source, and every dream has to be dealt with most cautiously, neither with blind faith, nor with nothing-caring-indifference. The best thing is to consult and take decision from one in whom you believe and who is more advanced religious soul, higher than yourself.

In the case of the Founder ( Shri Markand Dholkia – the author of this book & the Founder of Universal Religion Mai-ism, popularly known as Mai Swarup Mai Markand or Maiji), dreams and visions have played an extremely important part, as would be seen from so many instances narrated already and to be narrated hereafter.

The very belief in the existence of a Finalmost element beyond this visible world, was the rich first fruit  of the Divine dream given by Bhadrakali at Ahmadabad. His acceptance as a son by Bahucharaji Mother  was through the dream in the temple.

His being permanently established as a devotee of Mother was the most invaluable Grace through the Direct Vision of Mother Herself,at the moment of his suicide leading despair.

In the very installation of Mai, it was the dreams of Her two devotees, one from Calcutta and the other from Shemoga (Mysore) that had played the important part of convincing the Founder about Mother’s determined Will.

Further, he convened the Sisters’ Social at Poona (Pune), simply because he took the dream-command as realistically as a General’s command to his humble servant. The Madras (Chennai) Sisters’ Gathering on 1-10-1949 (Dusserah day) was also the result of a later command in dream.

The activities in respect of the latter were enthusiastically taken up by leading Madras (Chennai) sister, (a resident of Mambalam) because she had a dream.

In Poona (Pune) Sisters’ Social, one rich Parsi lady, eighty one years of age , was actually carried by her grand-daughters to the meeting because she had a dream ( as narrated by her grand-daughter during the meeting) to the purport attendance in that meeting was the highest expiation of all sins , for anyone belonging to any religion.

 Seeing dreams in which Mother and Founder would be seen  sitting together and sometimes playing some indoor or outdoor game and sometimes “hide and seek”, was one variety. Mother teasing the Founder and the latter getting wrathful and running to catch Her and hit Her and Mother eluding the grip and laughing at his inability to cope with Her lighting speed – another variety.

In 1942 a lady from Karachi, and in 1944 a gent from Surat, came right down to Bombay (Mumbai) and Hubli respectively, simply because in their dreams they saw Mother sitting with an old devotee, who on description to someone  knowing the the Founder, was believed to be he . On seeing the Founder in person, they expressed their happiest wonder and joyfully narrated their details of  identification, while talking about the “dream-devotee” and the devotee-before-their-eyes.

Some one, with open eyes while meditating on Mother saw Her in life-size behind the Mother’s worship picture. Her heart opened slowly as a thin mist of cloud scatters away to show the moon behind, and in Her heart’s cavity, that one saw a small size bust of the Founder. Few seconds after, the heart closed up, setting a seal, as it were, over the heart protecting its beloved treasure.

Some one from Belgaum, who had been the Founder’s guest, once heard words like this in his ears “Bachchako Jagaav. Bolo Do Niwaalaa Khaake So”. -“My son, awaken; tell him two morsels having eaten, sleep”. This was in his wonderful hearing on one of the Navaraatra nights, when the Founder had not taken his regular meal by day and being tired with work and worry about the success of the Poona Sisters’ Social (9-10-1932), he lay on his cot half-hungry but half-sleepy and tired.

 Someone would see the most graceful living slim figure of Mother as in the Maai picture, with the face of Founder. The Founder’s face in that case would be quite young and beautiful ,without wrinkles  and grey hairs.

Someone would see  the beautiful Mother’s face and body up to the waist from below in green sari and the upper body would be covered under the Founder’s usual thin white shirt. Some would see half-Mother half-Founder. A layman in this matter may, for a time, argue, such dreams as are narrated above, may be the creation of their own mental thoughts, but we can’t explained away like that, when the Founder actually experienced a vast, striking change in the attitude of the persons before and after their experience.

I am referring to the dream experience of Mysore (Shimoga) devotee, who carried the Mother -Installing message, referred to before . This young man happened to come to the hotel as a casual visitor, like one of so many passers-by where the Founder was residing. The Founder also , by chance, just went to the dinning -floor, at the time that man was dinning.

As soon as that man saw the the Founder quickly returning to his place, he suddenly left his half-meal and ran after the Founder. Most abruptly, he talked to Founder,” Are you a devotee of a Devi?” Founder also made no delay, ” Yes, not only a devotee, but a passionate, most uneasy devotee”. Still more abruptly the man said, ” I come from Mysore. I have a message to hand over to you from your Mother”. The Founder got dumb-founded. “Yes, please come up to my room”. The man followed. The message was communicated.

Said the man,” I have come down so far. Would you not favour me with the spark of Love for Mother? I have enough of divine knowledge (Jnana) and Ritualistic Bhakti, just for my purposes ( this was only his modesty ). Said Founder,” Are you prepared ? Would you sit with me  on the bench of the Sheikh Sulla bridge (in Poona – Pune) during night hours?” He agreed. The Founder was sitting with him in exposure from 11 P.M. to 4 A.M. on a wooden bench.

The man went to his place. He was at the highest  pitch of his desire that he may have a vision of Mother, at least in the dream. He had a dream, on sleeping. Mother appeared before him and said,” You are now longing for my Darshan ( vision). Who was talking to you for hours on the bridge ? That was myself. You have not only seen me, but talked with me for hours.” The man full of devotion and with tears in his eyes, narrated the event forthwith to the Founder, at the early dawn.

The reader may feel inclined to know similarly about the Calcutta message-bearer. With the command to carry the message in a dream, he came over to Poona (Pune). Finding no place in any other hotel, he had come over to the hotel where Founder resided.

With greater despondency as to how to find the man in such a large unknown city, he fell into sleep at 10 P.M. He had a dream.”Don’t be afraid and losing heart. I have brought you to the man.” Just at 12 mid-night, you see things through the slits of the common door between your room and the front room. You have to hand over the message  to the man there in the morning. Make a bold statement of what you see and the message.”

The man saw the Founder at the said hour in communion, full of solicitations to Mother”to find some other man to install etc.”and in lamentation and in his part of unconsciousness and ground-falling in swoon.

In the morning, he delivered the message in a bold convincing manner and that evening he left for Nagpur.

 Once a great yogi arrived at the Founder’s, in Hubli, as a distinguished rare guest. He was a master of English and Sanskrit in his young days. He had relinquished the world and was moving from place to place. He lived on milk, fruit and wet gram pulse uncooked.

The Founder remained all the while in high humility with his two hands folded and attended him as a waiter. Like Totapuri in Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’s life, he was talking to the Founder, almost spurningly or atleast belittlingly about Founder’s devotional madness and absence of regularity, looseness in daily routine trivial matters, over-kindness to undeserving, mind weakness, etc. It was in the manner of a Gyani or a Yogi with an extreme superiority complex, talking from the terrace to a foot-path man. All this took place during the day time, on the first-arrival-day.

They slept that night at 2 A.M.Founder is a late riser. He usually sleeps after 3 A.M. and gets up between 8 and 9 in morn. As soon as Founder woke up, the Yogi made a long prostration, and began to speak in humblest words ,’ Forgive me. Forgive my impudence, my folly, my swollen-headedness . For the first time in my life, I have a cause to repent. Even a house holder can be a highest religious man. Thou art the Divine Mother, in human form”.

The Founder was shocked at such a change in few night hours.The Yogi told him, he had a dream. “With his Yogic powers, he was soaring high along a big mountain and was standing near the edge of the plateau. Somehow his foot slipped and he rolled most hurtfully along the slope.He was being crushed with ice-blocks falling on him. He came rolling at the foot of the mount.He had got senseless. When he got consciousness, he saw that one most beautiful Mother was nursing him. She lifted him and carried him to a long deep cave and placed him lying just at the cave-mouth. The Mother shouted hard to someone in the cave, ‘Come out quick, a great Yogi has slipped from the mount and is most seriously hurt.’ Out came a simple dressed  quite an ordinary-looking man, with childlike lustrous face.”

The Yogi at this point began to ask the Founder” Who do you think or guess this Saviour man might be ?” The Founder gave some two or three names, Kali Kamaliwala, Lord Anand, etc. The Yogi impatiently said, ” No. No” , and then with an outburst of lamentation frantically prostrated to the Founder and catching his feet said,” Who else can he be ??? It was you, you, you with merciful heart for anyone , even the worst sinners. You, human Merciful Mother.” And he wept profusely.

There was one interesting instance of a lady. She was supposed to be the Maataaji. We have so many of them amongst Hindus, ladies in whose body some Devi would appear periodically. All will worship her, ask questions, advice and blessings, this was in a much earlier period. Whereas the Yogi incident was in 1944, this one was in 1936 in Poona (Pune). Somehow Founder was introduced to the lady, and she began to take him”right and left”. She attacked him ruthlessly,” Do you think mere knowledge is God’s Grace ?? Does any Maataaji favour you with Her Grace by making you yourself the Maataaji ? Can you tell me now what is going on at a certain place and a certain hour ? Show me what you are capable of .” The Founder was more than “ground-dusted”. He prostrated to her saying ” I am simply a worthless nothing “. This took place at about 3 p.m. on a Sunday, at some common friend’s house. The next day, she was found in her motor at the very door of the Founder’s office. Founder was surprised. He took her in. There was no prostration, but full humility in her eyes. She asked pardon in the honorable manner that a lady, and one who was herself worshipped as Maataaji, can do.

She explained herself. She had a dream in the night in which she saw her own living Guru in Mount Abu. He was “red and hot” and telling her,” What a foolish thing have you done !!! You have insulted and humiliated a great devotee whom I myself would consider a great privilege to meet. Find him out and immediately run to demand pardon “.She said she had no sleep for the rest of night. She knew only the office address and she had been there to ask his pardon at the first available moment. 

On 15-9-1950, the Ganapati Installation day, a distinguished Swamiji of Madras (Chennai) city, who had seen the Founder only twice at Madras (Chennai)  when he went for the first time to Madras for Sister’s gathering on Dusserah day (1-10-1949), had a dream at 4.30 A.M. ; he wrote it out to the Founder. It was nearly ten months since they had any correspondence whatsoever. The substance was: ” I was sitting on a sea-shore. Something took place and I was hurled down into the sea – life itself being in danger and practically lost. I began to struggle hard with hands and feet and to repeat with the highest intense devotion, the most effectious hymns and mantras of Shri Tripura Sundari, Ambika and Ganapati. All hope lost, but finally Mother was pleased to save me. There was an upward push which brought me near up to the surface. I was over  joyful on being practically saved. I saw Mother Herself on the shore, with “one”. That “one” jumped into the sea and clasped my hand and pulled me out on the shore “.

The Swamiji further wrote,”Who do you think that “one” was ?? I am myself so joyfully surprised to find who that “one” was. It was Mai-Swarup Mai Markand, Founder and President of Mother’s Lodge. You are the most Beloved Soul of Mother. You are the replica , you are Her embodiment “, etc. etc. 

EXTRACT FROM THE BOOK :  MAI-ISM  

AUTHOR: MAI SWARUP MAI MARKAND ; FIRST EDITION : 1952 / SECOND EDITION : 2007  PUBLISHED BY MAI NIWAS, SARASWATI ROAD END, SANTA CRUZ (WEST), MUMBAI – 400054 INDIA.