At the Feet of Mother Meera: The Lessons of Silence

By Sonia L. Linebaugh

xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">







We come to the feet of the silent Mother Meera full of the noise of the
world and the noise of our minds

<br><!--<br>/* Font Definitions */<br>@font-face<br>{font-family:"Calligraph421 BT";<br>mso-font-charset:0;<br>mso-generic-font-family:script;<br>mso-font-pitch:variable;<br>mso-font-signature:7 0 0 0 17 0;}<br>@font-face<br>{font-family:"Bell MT";<br>mso-font-alt:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-font-charset:0;<br>mso-generic-font-family:roman;<br>mso-font-pitch:variable;<br>mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}<br>/* Style Definitions */<br>p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal<br>{mso-style-parent:"";<br>margin:0in;<br>margin-bottom:.0001pt;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>font-size:12.0pt;<br>font-family:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}<br>h1<br>{mso-style-next:Normal;<br>margin-top:12.0pt;<br>margin-right:0in;<br>margin-bottom:3.0pt;<br>margin-left:0in;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>page-break-after:avoid;<br>mso-outline-level:1;<br>font-size:16.0pt;<br>font-family:Arial;<br>mso-font-kerning:16.0pt;}<br>h3<br>{mso-style-next:Normal;<br>margin-top:12.0pt;<br>margin-right:0in;<br>margin-bottom:3.0pt;<br>margin-left:0in;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>page-break-after:avoid;<br>mso-outline-level:3;<br>font-size:13.0pt;<br>font-family:Arial;}<br>p.MsoHeader, li.MsoHeader, div.MsoHeader<br>{margin:0in;<br>margin-bottom:.0001pt;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>tab-stops:center 3.0in right 6.0in;<br>font-size:12.0pt;<br>font-family:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}<br>p.MsoFooter, li.MsoFooter, div.MsoFooter<br>{margin:0in;<br>margin-bottom:.0001pt;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>tab-stops:center 3.0in right 6.0in;<br>font-size:12.0pt;<br>font-family:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}<br>p.MsoTitle, li.MsoTitle, div.MsoTitle<br>{margin-top:12.0pt;<br>margin-right:0in;<br>margin-bottom:3.0pt;<br>margin-left:0in;<br>text-align:center;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>mso-outline-level:1;<br>font-size:16.0pt;<br>font-family:Arial;<br>mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-font-kerning:14.0pt;<br>font-weight:bold;}<br>p.MsoBodyText, li.MsoBodyText, div.MsoBodyText<br>{margin-top:0in;<br>margin-right:0in;<br>margin-bottom:6.0pt;<br>margin-left:0in;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>font-size:12.0pt;<br>font-family:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}<br>p.MsoBodyTextFirstIndent, li.MsoBodyTextFirstIndent, div.MsoBodyTextFirstIndent<br>{mso-style-parent:"Body Text";<br>margin-top:0in;<br>margin-right:0in;<br>margin-bottom:6.0pt;<br>margin-left:0in;<br>text-indent:10.5pt;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>font-size:12.0pt;<br>font-family:"Times New Roman";<br>mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";}<br>p.MsoBodyText2, li.MsoBodyText2, div.MsoBodyText2<br>{margin-top:0in;<br>margin-right:0in;<br>margin-bottom:6.0pt;<br>margin-left:0in;<br>line-height:200%;<br>mso-pagination:widow-orphan;<br>font-size:12.0pt;<br>font-family:"Times New Roma

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 19, 2004
• ISBN: 9781465332547

Book preview

Contents

FORWARD

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

missing image file

All Love and Devotion to Mother Meera

Special thanks to

David, Darin and Stephanie Linebaugh, Adilakshmi, Sandra Martin, and Gregory Chronister.

Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to use photos and to quote Mother Meera from the following books:

Mother Meera Answers © 1991 Mother Meera

ISBN 0-9622973-3-X

Mother Meera Answers Part II © 1997 Mother Meera

ISBN 3-9805475-5-8

The Mother by Adilakshmi © 1987, 1999 Mother Meera

Publications ISBN 3-00-000241-3

FORWARD

We come to the feet of the silent Mother Meera full of the noise of the world and the noise of our thoughts. In Silence, our minds are freed from rebellion. In Silence, our lessons in living and light begin.

We come as adults to the feet of Mother Meera to submit our heads to her gentle touch and our eyes to her probing gaze. We come with expectation of enlightenment or miracle cure or sage teaching.

We leave as children who have been silently nourished by a loving Mother.

As we open to that nourishing love, we come to know something of Mother Meera and something more of ourselves. We know her by the changes that accrue in our lives over ten years of spiritual journey. We know her by the darkness that is revealed and dissolved within us. We know her by the love that sprouts inwardly, and the love that we observe in family members and chance acquaintances in the Mother’s sphere.

We know her by the Light that becomes visible in her presence and in the world. We know her as a gift to humanity through the evidence of our heart.

One evidence is a growth of devotion to the Divine. As the heart opens under the focused attention of Mother Meera, it becomes increasingly identified with a larger, more inclusive, more loving point of view. This can be experienced and is, we might say, a self-verification of this pathless path. It is experienced through the steadying influence of light and silence in moments of confusion when knots of doubt and darkness come undone. It is experienced through the sustaining connection to the Divine Mother in the upwelling of joy or the anguish of grief.

Since 1992, I have been drawn again and again to the potent silence of Mother Meera. I have been nourished by this spiritual path with no name, no rules, no beliefs, no techniques, no lectures, and no demands. It is an incredibly private path. Incredibly silent. Incredibly powerful.

Reflecting personal experience, the book is formatted in recurring themes. At first, a sense of adventure dominates. With the years, inward and outward patterns in the tapestry of life become visible, brilliant and deep.

Recurring themes become lessons: We learn to live our lives as we must. We learn to ask God for everything. To avoid nothing, while offering everything. To view life’s ups and downs as normal. To experience everything and be attached to nothing. To see the Divine’s perfect face of love in every moment.

We receive these lessons as gift from our loving Mother.

CHAPTER 1

When the Child Calls, The Divine Mother Must Answer

Be like a child—clear, loving, spontaneous, infinitely flexible and ready each moment to wonder and accept miracle.

~Mother Meera

From the beginning, light is what drew me on. From earliest memory I have wanted light. I remember clearly a rectangle of light seen at an angle from below. Above it hangs another more shaded rectangle. It’s the kitchen window of the skinny house in Violet Hill, Pennsylvania, with the shade pulled half down. It’s late afternoon when the sun sets behind St. Patrick’s Cemetery on the western hill of the two that define our valley. I know the time of day and the place names in retrospect. I imagine the circumstances: I was lying on the white wooden table under that window for a basin bath or a diaper change. My mother lay younger babies on that same table so I can guess that she did the same with me.

As I grew, the play of light and shadow across the lawns of our little neighborhood became the memories of childhood. As I grew, my attunement to light turned inward as well as outward. It became a longing to escape the smallness of my body and my mind, a longing to breathe the air of a vaster universe, a tangible need for an imperishable spiritual light.

The taste for spiritual light was nourished in silent moments as a child and later in both the discipline of meditation and in the solitary act of writing, in moments of inner quiet amidst a jostled, busy life. I had hints and insights, inspirations and spiritual experience. The communion of childhood gave way to the silence of meditation, the discovery of spiritual literature, techniques and intellectual discussion. Finally, I wanted more. More. More.

This story begins with a journal entry recording an impasse on the battleground of my own consciousness between spiritual heart and too much intellect.

Journal: January 25,1991. Home.

In the Bhagavad-Gita, the hero Arjuna approached the battle with his mind. As he pulled up his chariot amidst opposing forces with relatives on both sides, Lord Krishna called him Partha, evoking his mother, his heart and his compassion, catapulting him into an awareness of the duality of mind and heart.

This is my suffering, too, this duality of mind and heart. Exactly what does the heart yearn for? Where is my mind taking me? Can they be reconciled? The heart is shrieking with too much mind. An overloaded heart pushes the mind into a corner.~

My inner battle raged for years between heart and intellect. Usually intellect won, but I wasn’t satisfied. Then came a moment of breakthrough. A back copy of Yoga Journal came in the mail. I idly opened to the table of contents. A beautiful young Indian woman smiled out at me from a one-inch photograph. My heart went wild. Who is she, I wondered. I turned the pages urgently, bathed in the nourishing words. I remember only her face, her eyes, and the idea of living with spiritual light. My yearning bent eagerly towards this ray. Lately, my prayers had been not just for heart but for the feminine aspect of spirituality. Now, as simply as that, I recognized that the answer had arrived. Mother Meera became the silent teacher of my soul. The light in her eyes became my beacon.

Despite the years of meditation, one glimpse of Mother Meera’s eyes showed me a light I had not seen before. I did not inquire about techniques or teachings. I only knew that she had something, some light that I must seek out.

Earlier, I had thought myself beyond the idea of God as a personal deity, beyond God as Our Father. I had thought myself grown up beyond the God of my childhood to the abstract vision of God as Creative Intelligence. A performance piece I wrote for children at the private school where I taught summed up my spiritual thinking:

In the beginning,

there was this space within ourselves.

In the beginning

there was this place within ourselves.

And this space was dynamic.

This place was intelligent.

This place was invincible . . .

I don’t know when this abstract vision became insufficient, not incorrect but insufficient, just as the church of my childhood had become insufficient. Now, I was again demanding a bigger vision. I pestered my spiritually knowledgeable friends: Where is the woman in spiritual literature? Where are the female role models? Stories of Eastern seers and sages tell of men going off to fast in the jungles, while their enlightened wives manage the kingdom or the household. How did these women become enlightened? In the Catholic tradition, the women saints were virgin-martyrs or founders of religious orders. Happy wives and mothers were never on the lists of role models. What about the female aspect of God?

In response came books and tapes of the thousand Sanskrit names of Mother Divine. I listened to the tapes. I read the names: Salutations to she who is the queen over all beings sentient and insentient. Salutations to she who is the queen of the supreme being. Salutations to she who has nothing to reject nor to seek. Salutations to she who is the slayer of the forces of evil.

It was much like the litanies of my Catholic school days: Mother most chaste, pray for us. Virgin most powerful, pray for us. Queen of angels, pray for us. Seat of wisdom, pray for us.

I wanted more. More. More. I wanted the Divine Mother herself. The moment I saw her, I knew that Mother Meera had some answer. Her eyes spoke directly to my heart. The intellect stayed out of it.

I told my husband, Dave, about Mother Meera. I told him that here was a spiritual mother who gave her blessing freely to everyone. I told him that anyone could write to her, could go to see her. This was very different from the meditation movement we had been with for so long. Mother Meera, I said, sounded so simple, so giving, so approachable. She didn’t give lectures, didn’t discredit married life, didn’t ask for allegiance or money.

Hm-m, was Dave’s noncommittal reply, his mind occupied with an intricate computer problem. Hm-m, okay.

Journal: October 21,1991. Home.

The householder’s life is the path of devotion. I am longing for the Divine Mother. I want to see Her, hear Her, touch Her, smell Her, taste Her. I want to be Her. Will you help me?~

Journal: January 11,1992. Home.

I am defeated. Thwarted. Rejected. Disappointed.

I couldn’t stay at the neighbor ‘s party. I couldn’t talk about airplane trips or football games. I need the spiritual angle. I want the Divine Mother. I opened a book of Rabindranath Tagore ‘s poetry. ‘The night is nearly spent waiting for you in vain. I fear lest in the morning you suddenly come to my door when I have fallen asleep wearied out..."

I wonder if ever I will see visions, hear the hum of the universe, feel the winds of infinity, smell the bliss of ananda, taste the nectar of immortality. I wonder. I doubt. I hope. I grope. 1.1.1.

The night is. The water moves. The soul waits without patience.-

I read what I could find about Mother Meera’s Light, freely given without rules, beliefs or rituals. I ordered books from Mother’s home. On a warm day full of the promise of spring, Dave brought two thick envelopes in from the mail box. What’s this? he asked. Answers and Bringing Down the Light.

Curious at last, he sat with me to look at the beautiful and mysterious paintings Mother Meera made of her uncle Mr. Reddy’s journey after death. We marveled at the depictions of the subtle body being tenderly cared for by not one or two but several divine mothers. We laughed at the depiction of Mr. Reddy’s meditation surrounded by thoughts. That was too familiar. In these spontaneous expressive paintings, death becomes a transition held in a mother’s loving embrace.

We couldn’t get enough. We immediately went on to read Answers aloud to each other with breaks for a walk on the beach, meditation and supper. We read and talked about Mother Meera. We read and nourished our hearts and our minds with the food of the Divine. Dave’s attention had leaped from computers to a loftier logic.

As we read at the kitchen table, just outside a mourning dove perched gingerly on the edge of a feeder meant for much smaller birds. As long as we read, she stayed by the open window and seemingly listened to every word. The dove heard that Mother Meera is bringing a new Light into the world to help transform humanity, that her purpose in our time is to open all people to the power and radiance of this Light so the Divine Will may be done and the Divine Life established on earth.

The silent dove heard that Mother offers her help to all, regardless of path or religion. She heard that Mother offers darshan, the silent blessing of her presence, four evenings a week to those who come to her home in Thalheim, Germany.

With us, the mourning dove learned that Mother Meera’s advice is as practical as it is simple. "There are so many [meditation] techniques. Generally they confuse people. Quite often they increase people’s spiritual pride instead of destroying it. The proud man is far from God.

You have to be very careful. The best way is to remember the Divine in everything and to offer everything to the Divine. Asked why she leads such a simple life in a quiet German village, Mother answered, To show the world that the transformation is normal, can be done anywhere and in daily life."

By the time the books were finished, Dave was, like me, caught by Mother. I like to think the dove was hooked, too.

Life becomes fresh and new. I live intensely in the present.

I write to Mother, I want to come see you. Please help. I get return mail saying, Mother received your letter and she said she will help you.

I think about her all the time now. I had never been one to chase after gurus or celebrities. It’s astonishing to me that I am so thoroughly caught and yet it feels completely natural. Openness is growing inside. One early morning, I sit up in bed to meditate. Afterwards, eyes open, I glimpse Mother standing near the window. Her face is vague, unreadable, attached to a brilliant white light that seems a figure changing to two rectangles before dissolving. The thought comes, She’s here, she’s really here. As I close my eyes, I feel light flooding up through my feet and washing into my body. It grows less strong as it goes higher. An airplane flies overhead as the experience fades. Sound fades too, but a momentary hum returns.

Dave and I make our flight plans.

It’s our first trip to Europe. Our ignorance of German ways and customs causes continuous problems, but help materializes at each step. At the airport, a woman helps us figure out how to take the train. When we arrive at the huge Frankfurt station, I manage to use my traveler’s German for the first time to find a bank. We plan to spend the night in medieval Limburg about an hour north of Frankfurt before continuing the short distance to Frickenhofen, a village near Thalheim where we’ll look for a hotel or a pension. With his school-boy German, Dave buys tickets to Limburg via Niederhausen.

As we’re about to board the train, however, we discover that the tickets read Nuremberg. An English-speaking woman overhears our dismay, and talks to the conductor who says, Go ahead and get on. You can exchange the tickets at the Limburg station. Dazed, we jump on the train. At Limburg, the ticket master speaks English, and we exchange the tickets without difficulty, but we also learn that the last train to Frickhofen is about to leave and there won’t be another this Easter weekend. We run to the track and jump aboard, arriving in the tiny village with no sign of a taxi, an agent who speaks no English, and a list of places we might stay sent by Mother Meera’s office.

We walk to the only hotel to find the door locked. When we ring the bell, a young