In about 1986/87 Shri Mataji was going to visit us in the ashram of Le Raincy, Paris, and we were preparing for Her arrival. At that time we didn’t have a special service for Shri Mataji, cups, plates and so on, so we went to buy one in the Rue de Paradis near the Gare de L’Est. We found a shop where they sold imitations of expensive services and we bought a nice red one with some gold on it.
When Shri Mataji came She really liked it and asked to go to the shop where we bought it because She wanted to buy some more, as the price was really good compared to the quality. So we went and while the shopkeeper was busy finding things for us Shri Mataji sat on a chair and started to talk about the sari She was wearing, as we had made a remark that it was very beautiful. It had some archers on the border and also on the sari itself.
As Shri Mataji was talking we sat at Her Feet in the middle of this nice shop in Paris, and She told us the story that was on Her sari. It was about Arjuna. His guru, Drona, asked the five Pandava brothers to have a shooting competition. They had to look at a tree and tell what they saw. The other brothers saw different things: one saw a tree, another said that in the tree were some branches, then some leaves and on a branch a bird, and on the bird an eye. Only Arjuna answered that what he saw was the eye of the bird. He shot directly at the eye of the bird, while the others missed it. Shri Mataji explained that this story meant that our attention should be the same as Arjuna’s. It should be on the Spirit, in the same way as Arjuna’s, as he only saw the eye of the bird and not everything around.
It was a very special moment, just the three of us sitting at the Feet of Shri Mataji, and like in the story, we were only listening to Her and were not aware of what was going on around us.
In the end Shri Mataji bought two services, one for Sir CP and one for Her family.
Trupta de Graaf