BRO. ISHTANANDA: Our approach to [Guru seva] will be different for each one, each one brings different skills and talents to offer to the Guru. But don’t allow it to just become ‘good wholesome activity,’ so to speak. Make it personal for you, between you and the Guru.
One example I often come back to in this regard is Sri Ananda Mata, who was Sri Daya Mata’s sister, she served Master personally, she cleaned his living quarters, she was a driver for him. And over the years that became her approach to the spiritual path, Guru Bhakti through Guru Seva, devotion to the Guru through that Guru Seva. And after Master left the body she just took on more and more ways of serving his work–tremendous what she did for Master’s work.
In fact, one time Sri Daya Mata told me, “No one will ever know what she has done for this work. She has done the work of seven people.”
One time we were setting up a display for Master’s centennial year for the year 1993. And Ananda Ma was in charge of the archives. She looked over all these personal items that belonged to Master and she would call me from time to time and say, “I have this item, would you like to come up and see if it’s something we could use in the display?” And of course I’d be thrilled and I’d go running up the stairs to Ananda Ma’s office. And one particular day she had this white scarf, and she showed it to me and she said, “This was Master’s favorite scarf, and this was his favorite stick pin. He would just drape it around and put the stick pin through it.” Master didn’t like to wear the traditional western ties, and so when he was going to wear a sports jacket he would put this scarf around and put a stick pin in it.
So she was showing me Master’s favorite scarf…and then she said, “Oh, it needs ironing.” And she immediately left the room; down the hallway from her office was a small utility room with one of these ironing boards you pull out from the wall and she went down there and ironed Master’s scarf.
Now she had a whole staff of both monks and nuns, she could have given that task to anybody. It didn’t cross her mind. That was Master’s and it needed ironing and she did it. Even though she was head of the legal department, she was treasurer for the board of directors, she was head of the audio visual department, she was head of accounting, she was head of the photo department, just on and on. But she had time to iron Master’s scarf because it was his.
So I’m enouraging you…we want to accomplish for Master, but don’t ever let it get lost in a ‘busy-ness’ that takes away from the personal attitude, “I’m doing it for Master. I’m doing it for Master.”
from “The Relationship Between Guru and Disciple” Bro. Ishtananda
(l-r) Ananda Mata, Daya Mata, Mrinalini Mata, being received in India
MRINALINI MATAJI: A life that is well-lived in this world gives something to us all; and this is surely true of the life that was lived by our dear Ananda Ma, that example of guru-bhakti. And to really honor what she is—not what she was but what she is, because she will always be an integral part of Gurudeva’s work—we should remember and apply her example: that guru-bhakti is given in the highest form through selfless service to his cause.
You have heard many stories of how she was never reserved in the hours and the energy that she gave. It did not matter how small or how great the responsibility or the problem or the duty, let it all be related to God and to Guru—that is the way Ananda Ma lived her life. Whether she was working on administrative duties or whether she was quietly taking Gurudeva’s car to be washed and polished before he had to go to one of his lecture services at the temple, it was always with the same devotion, the same caring.
from ANANDA MATA, “Her whole life was Guru-Bhakti” ~ Mrinalini Mata
See also ~
ANANDA MATA, “Her whole life was Guru-Bhakti” ~ Mrinalini Mata
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