When I was a young girl I had the great fortune and blessing of sometimes accompanying Shri Mataji on some of her trips abroad. I also spent some time ‘helping’ at Brompton Square, Shri Mataji’s London residence during the 1980’s.
It was a time when those yogis and yoginis with decorating skills were invited to come and work on that elegant Georgian house under the watchful gaze of the Adi Shakti. As She watched teams of yogis scrape off layers of wallpaper going back to before Victorian times it felt that many other layers were being worked on inside us all.
As it was such a wonderful opportunity to be in the presence of our Divine Mother it didn’t take long for this young London schoolgirl to swiftly acquire some nifty wallpapering abilities. My first wallpapering task was to wallpaper the inside of Shri Mataji’s sari cupboard in Her bedroom with a beautiful silvery paper with gorgeous white blooms.
Before I began I needed to take out the saris and if I close my eyes I can still see the myriad shades of gorgeous colours and soft subtle silks in hues so vibrated and sparkling with chaitanya that it seemed as if all the colours of the universe were pouring out of the cupboard. And the fragrance – I wish I could conjure that pure fragrance like nothing else on earth and yet very much of the Mother Earth – a divine fragrance that brings tears to the eyes due to its sacredness. No other fragrance in the world compares to the fragrance emitting from Shri Mataji, and Her saris carry a lasting resonance of Her unique perfume.
Thereafter I seemed to find myself at Shri Mataji’s house ‘helping’ every school holidays (and sometimes rather cheekily when I should have been at school). In those days I foolishly imagined that Shri Mataji didn’t really ‘know’ me or hadn’t really ‘noticed’ me in the house amongst the more established yogi workforce. Did She even know my name, I wondered one particular day?
That very day I was given a guest bathroom to wallpaper on the fifth floor of the house. There I was, up a ladder on the top floor of the house wallpapering a bathroom ceiling, very concentrated on what I was doing, when suddenly I started to feel overwhelmed with a warm feeling of love and joy flowing through my body.
As I was balancing on a ladder and focussing entirely on getting the paper aligned I hadn’t actually noticed that Shri Mataji had unexpectedly (and very softly and silently) climbed up the five storeys and was in fact standing in the doorway watching me. When I turned I saw the Goddess looking at me with such an expression of such love and compassion I was overcome.
‘Hello Danya,’ She said simply, with a radiant smile, ‘I was just enjoying watching you. I came to tell you that lunch is ready.’
It was only later when replaying the scene of Her overwhelming kindness did I realise that of course Shri Mataji knew my name, and more importantly, She knew me through and through.
Danya Martoglio