In 1987 I was at Pratishthan with my father-in-law, who was an architect. Shri Mataji was building it and at that time it was basically a construction site. Shri Mataji used to sit in the centre of the main hall, which was open at the sides. She would sit on a chair, which was on a large blue carpet. Around Her were hundreds of doors from Taiwan, bathroom fittings, construction workers, and all sorts of things. The front of the house, from a Rajasthani palace, had just arrived and was going to be installed.
At some stage Shri Mataji called me over and said She had a job for me. She presented me with a long rectangular piece of sandstone which was in pieces. It was like a big window, hand carved, with daisy like flowers in a lattice shape, in three pieces and all broken. She wanted me to glue it together with Araldite glue.
The first mistake I made was to think that it was impossible to glue something together so heavy with Araldite. The second mistake was to listen to the suggestions of all sorts of people over the next few days, who would say, ‘Why don’t you do it this way?’ and so on. Then some of us were sitting around with hacksaw blades trying to cut up the sandstone, which was hundreds of years old.
After three days, there was a small and spontaneous Diwali Puja. Shri Mataji called me over to Her.
‘Just do it!’ She said firmly.
Within half an hour, this thing, which had been in many pieces all over the floor, was glued together with Araldite and a little cement, and the next day it was put up on the wall of Pratishthan, where it still is. What I learnt from this is that Shri Mataji wanted me to see this job through to the end, and make sure it got done as She wanted it, and if we do this all the negativity will just disappear.
On the day of the puja, when I was working on the sandstone, I looked around, and all the Pune Sahaja Yogis had arrived. It was the Shri Lakshmi day of Diwali. They had bought a lot of food and drink and wanted to give
this to Shri Mataji because She had never had anything in the house up to then. So we offered Mother a small puja – coconuts and rice, then they offered Mother a cup of tea and something to eat. They also asked Heir for the blessing of rain, because there had been a drought for three years. We all watched through the window, towards the mountains which Shri Mataji said are the Sahasrara of Maharashtra, and watched the rain come over those mountains, and it poured down in Pune for three days and broke the drought.
It was the most beautiful time to be in Pratishthan because Shri Mataji was building it, and you could see She was working it out. You would go there one day and there was a staircase being built, and the next time you went it had completely come down. She was working on so many things. It was like She was working on the universe, and it was being made and rebuilt and destroyed and rebuilt, and there were so many yogis from all over the world and also from India, working on different aspects of Pratishthan. Shri Mataji was so gracious.
Another time we were sitting in Her room and She was talking, and I was there with my young son. Shri Mataji had a bowl of roasted channa (chick peas) next to Her, as She often did in those days. All of a sudden my son got up and walked up to Her, and picked up the channa and started to hand it out to everybody as prasad. I was trying to tell him to come back and sit down. Then Shri Mataji raised Her hand.
‘It’s all right,’ She said, and he walked around giving out channa to everybody. Then he put the bowl back on the table and sat down.
Gillian Patankar