HUMAN WELFARE (from holy lips)

(One)

[None would ever be able to realize how difficult the situations were in the past when Mother had to manage and treat Kala everyday in the midst of her tiresome household activities! How very compassionate Mother was that none of us at the fore could ever protest doing things along the mother. In reality you would hardly find such a great personality.]

Ma-Mahajnan: Well, look here, in these days I hear everybody indulging in tall talk about human welfare. What does it mean? Could you tell me? I hear so many things. That grand staff turns out to be nothing more than a tuber-bud (olbenji). Could you tell me its meaning? There! You surely know that tuber or arum called ‘Ol kachu’. It’s on its surface some knobby patches or buds. If you cut out and sow those buds, they sprout. These are called ‘bij’—seed or ‘beji’, many also call them ‘mukhi’.

Then you see what your brotherhood is like. You knead the tuber with lemon-juice and chilies and eat it. Besides you sow those buds and grow plants. Can you now understand what the brotherhood is like? What? O yes, we work for human welfare. We go forward to give something to one from whom we get something.

Now you will ask me—if you don’t now, you’ll do it later on.—How is it, mother, of all things you talk about a tuber? –Off with you, you scups, you don’t get even this! I compare the taste and quality of the tuber to mind.

Look here then, I tell you, this is an example. It’s nothing to talk about. You see it at all hours, or are you wearing blinkers over your eyes. Don’t you see what I’ve made of Kala? The day Kala came and stood before me—it’s now some two years gone since that day. Think of that.

(No. of words – 314)

(Two)

No sooner did he come and stood, (I was then talking with somebody and was very busy. He was slobbering at the mouth, looking grotesque or something like that.) I saw him and said—Hey, what do you want? Why are you sitting here? No answer. Several times I ask him but getting no answer I stepped up.

The person with whom I was talking sort of ignored the whole affair. But my loving daughter was standing behind. Feeling enthused, she stepped up and said—mummy, do you know he’s dumb and half-witted. I then said—No, no, that’s nonsense. He’s up to some mischief. If he wants something, give that to him and ask him to leave. But he gave no answer and kept on sitting.

A few boys of the neighborhood then came forward and began talking about him. Feeling interested, I learnt a good deal about him by the way of question and answer.—So he has no parents! Nobody to call his own? There enquires progressed no further. But thoughts about him kept running in my mind all the time.

I put forward the matter before my boys. Well, what’s it all about? Khokan checked up on him outside and reported—No, mummy, he’s nobody of his own anywhere. The local boys, more or less, like him. Once or twice they took him to hospital.” With this he called the boy to me.

But he wouldn’t come if called in the usual way. He had no intelligence, nor could he talk. He was about ten or eleven. You had only to go by appearance. Whose son he was, where did he come from, who had left him thus!

But he suffers from a certain disorder. He falls down senseless every here and there and becomes wounded. It causes bloodshed. Doctors, I suppose, will give it the name of epilepsy. That, however, is not the point. The point is how to cure him.

Well, do you want me to talk further about him? His right arm was there but it was of no use. Possibly it had become paralyzed in course of his falls. I have earlier said that he was dumb and half-witted. But his dumbness wasn’t due to a short uvula. He could be taught to talk. That’s what I find today.

This Kala would often soil his pants. Besides he’d bouts of cold and fever, tummy upsets—all this was a matter of course. Now the thought uppermost in my mind was how to cure Kala. Well, how much can I possibly tell you about that? You can well guess that from the way Kala makes his demands on me.

(No. of words – 446)

(Three)

At times, I am held up while coming to the temple. On returning from the temple have to remain engaged with Kala right up to ten or eleven at night. O my children, so much to say! What more should I? At times, calling me ‘mother’ he would come up running with some demand and even go to the length of striking me. If his brothers and sisters in view of this new relation would intervene, he would also strike them.

Any way, when you hear this, what impression do you get? When I packed off Kala on the first day in the way I did—was that justified or had I something in view?--People talk of human welfare. Let me try it out. Here’s someone standing right before me. Let me find out his reaction when I pack him off. I am all the time there as the mother. But from this instance you can learn a good deal or you can talk a good deal about it.

Well, will you just tell me why like a silly ass you made me talk so much? O you stupid creatures, I’ve to give you an orderly exposition of the mode of human welfare, haven’t I? If you don’t lose your god-given capacity and look around with the eye of non-attachment, you’ll be able to see and understand everything. You’ll get everything in Kala, Bhola and Mola. If you ask and sit posing over a book, you’ll get no knowledge out of it. You’ll, however, if you’re kind enough to turn aside your eye of flesh so fixed on seeking and getting. I’m doing nothing out of your sight.

Do you take living beings to mean man only? To the best of my capacity I have performed my selfless duty towards all—birds, beasts, living creatures, even down to the trees. Off with you, don’t make me talk to no purpose. You or your father or your grand-pa--there are people in this world among you. They have knowledge and talent, call them up and show to them. Let me see how much pluck they have.

There! You don’t have the pluck to call them up, or they don’t have the pluck to come up? So you ask me! Away! What I’ve done, I am not going to take away with me. Everything will be left behind on this earth of yours. For ages together from now on, you’ll search, see, know and reason.

I say, have you something more to say? But Oh yes, even if you’ve nothing to object, you would say this, I know. If we want to work for human welfare, we’ve to work in this manner with a flawless mind. Look here, if you fail, don’t tort out your reasons. Just own up in a simple, straightforward fashion. Otherwise, if you just tort out your reasons and stop aside, there will be for you no way out. The way you seek for escape, know this is fenced off. H’m, human welfare, indeed! With the house filled with rubbish inside, you can only talk big in mouth, filling phrases from your hide-out in the jungle. Run away.

(No. of words – 532)
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