Why Australia has so many mice

Shortly after the Australian yogis had been on their first tour of India, in March 1981 Shri Mataji came to our newly-rented Burwood ashram with Sir CP and Aunty Raolbai. We were a small group of about forty to fifty Sahaja Yogis, some meeting Mother for the first time.

The joy of the visit remains with us: the picnics in parks and bushland, the outings, the public programmes, talks to yogis, and sharing our Mother’s birthday with the first puja to Shri Adi Shakti on Australian soil. My memory is primarily visual – like a photographic gallery – rather than a recall of words spoken.

However, I do remember two occasions more clearly. On one of our excursions with Mother we went to Taronga Zoo, overlooking Sydney Harbour. After wandering around outside and looking at a Noah’s Ark of creatures, we went into the Nocturnal House where many of our native marsupials were found. Shri Mataji walked past the enclosures housing such small and shy animals of the rodent family as the Anticinus and Bilb.

‘Do you know why Australia has so many mice? Because it is the land of Shri Ganesh,’ She observed, but, on seeing the ferocious-looking Tasmanian Devil, Her comment was: ‘There’s a little rakshasa.’

Bogunia Bensaude