Mother's Ideal is Religionisation of service.

The first requirement for the attainment of Mercy or Grace is " SERVICE WITH LOVE ". The service may be physical, mental or financial. Your giving to your Guru the benefit of your company at a nice dinner at his or another's place is no service, Your composing some few songs and in midst of praises, singing them before God and Guru is no service. Your giving your hand or shoulder to your Guru while coming out of his car is no service. As a matter of fact, you would be liked to be photographed in all these postures !!

Service by a disciple means a physical or mental activity, exertion and worry, with the mentality and humility of a household servant to his lifelong Master. A physical serving of the disciple is that action, which he would not have done in the usual walk of life, neither for any other person nor even for himself, and which few others would do. Guru's service means King's son collecting faggots, or a princess preparing herself without any one's help a dainty dish for her Guru. King Ambarish used to fetch water and grind grains for his Deity. That is service and such service alone can move Mother or guru.  The psychological working must be there. Your service must be solid, unique and emergent. It must give "thrusts" to your Guru and like the head thrusts of a calf must make the cow to milk. Your Guru should be pained to watch and observe the degree of humility, honesty, naturalness, selflessness and pain-staking-ness. He should feel he should never allow the same service to be repeated again. Your Guru should feel indebted as man to man and should be anxiously waiting, when you make a demand, when he would be able to free himself of the obligation, how he should make the return, what should be the best thing to be done for your welfare. Your service should be valuable deposit in the guru's mind. That is service and it is such a loving service alone that are blessed with handsome wonderful returns.


Once a man has the above full meaning of service required to attain Mercy or Grace, he is able to see that the financial service is the lowest type ( just the reverse of what modern people think) in the spiritual scales. The consideration with that outlook is not the usefulness of money to the Guru to meet his own requirements or for God's religious work, but the psychological one regarding the disciple. while you send a few chips to your Guru, you do not hand yourself to him. You have no humility, you have no benefit of the surrounding elevating atmosphere, You have no actual contact with the Guru. Your eyes do not meet those of your Guru. You do not get the benefit of a personal blessing with a Divine Touch on your head.


You are doing a thing, which anyone of your surroundings would have compelled you to do. A rupee by itself, without the accompanying love and service, is nothing more than what a cobbler or a tailor or an extravagant wife or a luxurious son or a daughter or discontented cook or a servant or an oppressive relative or a cheating friend or a clever pick-pocket, can so very easily deprive of you.


The financial service is, therefore, in its ultimate above sense, the lowest of the three varieties. People most miserably fail even there. If they can not make up  their mind and train it to feel satisfaction or consolation with the idea of " as if it was lost ", or " as if I had paid so much more to someone ", what other types of service and other things of spiritual development  they are capable of, Mother alone knows!!


The Founder says," You are welcome to catch my throat, but I assure you, the very idea of any service rendered to any suffering person having quite a straight and direct bearing with the pleasing of God, is not there. Service does not stand religionized. If, imagine, a Divine Mandate is issued, say, Chitragupta or the writer of the acts of every person has been issued instructions to note nothing about anyone except what he does by way of service to mankind, and if the world followed that religion, what a heavenly earth ours would be !!! It is not there. Why do you run me down so cruelly with blindfolded religious pride ??? Mother's Ideal is Religionisation of service. I again repeat. It is not religionised.

"I am not referring to what Hindu religion says or what Hindus have actually surely shown by their living in the past; I am sure the modern world ( after 1914, 1938 and 1947) has shown a quite contradictory belief. The only escape of defense of the defenders is dismissing quoted instances, as of exceptional people already irreligious or a hypocrite. I find the Hindu world getting degenerated to a hell. It may be only my experience. My ruthless and rustic way of saying things is that I have experienced this world to be heavenly up to 1914; from 1914 to 1938 it was a man's world; from 1938 to 1947 it was an animal world, but from 1947 it is the world of satans. The world may be heaven tomorrow. I do not deny, nor do I claim truth. I am recording only my honest conviction. It is my experience and conclusion. My observations after 1947, after the most impartial study of one and all of my daily experiences of things, are sated here.


  " Take any dealing with any person; there is no sweetness, but, pure and simple, often open and shameless, swallowing-ness, unless you are too strong or unless you both are in the temporary swimming bath of some artificial imaginary poetic or pleasure world. The world is not satisfied till the last drop of your goodness or sweetness is squeezed out from you and you are brought to the running usual animal-world-level. The very conception of mercifulness or gratefulness has disappeared. Mercy and goodness can be felt if there is any sense of justice in fundamental beliefs. Where is any question of gratefulness? if whatever the benefactor does, falls much below the expectations??


  "The average brain has lost all its anchors, standards and limits of justice, righteousness, straightforwardness, etc., and is in a speedy revolving whirl. If, as soon as anyone approaches you, you have to stand up with all your arms ready for an offensive or defensive, if even without any action there is a play of poison-gas from both the storage centres of virulent poisons, where can you hope to find a single atom of innocent joy ?? Be innocent like a lamb, and you soon have the fate of a lamb, under the knife.!!


  "To be failing in exploiting or squeezing out any man, likely to receive any advantage whatsoever from your any act or thought word or deed, is in itself the highest loss in the eyes of this modern age. People want to make out money or serve their selfishness for every moment that they live and for every act that proceeds from them or can be interpreted as having proceeded from them. People come with loud declarations to serve religion, but they have either the desire of making the show of serving, while actually doing nothing, or to be the master of the situation, and of the Guru or Saint, himself. Disinterested service to Religion is a matter of past. I am not speaking of the spiritual, mental or other world's future interest; but here and here alone, of the material gain of this world alone. People that come forth to serve religion, take away many times much more of the material gain than what they can get from any other ordinary man of the world. The world is passing from the stage of "service" and "absence of service," to "exploitation of religiosity in the name of service."  Mother save the world." !!

~ Extract from MAI-ISM book edition 1952